Air Attack on the Bismark

I am taking a bit of a break from the stupidity going on from the Charlotteville stupidity and the resulting fallout.  I had watched a show on netflex last weekend and it was talking about finding the H.M.S Hood and it talked about the cruiser and the effect the sinking had on British Morale.  Well anyway the show also had them looking for the S.M.S Bismark.  They had touched about the Fairey Swordfish finding the Bismark and the torpedo attack that jammed the rudder and forced the Bismark back to the British ships that were trying to catch them.

The German battleship, Bismarck, was one of the biggest vessels ever built in the first half of the 20^th century. A marvel of advanced engineering and technology, it was the most powerful ship in the world – yet a single shot by an antiquated biplane took it down.
At 792’8” in length, and with a beam of 118’1”, it displaced 49,500 tons of water. It was also deadly with eight 15” SK C/34 guns in four twin turrets, twelve 5.9” L/55 guns, sixteen 4.1” L/65 guns, sixteen 1.5” L/83 guns, and twelve 0.79” anti-aircraft guns, as well as four Arado Ar 196 reconnaissance floatplanes.

Bismarck in 1940. Photo Credit.

Its function was to destroy Allied convoys in the Atlantic, the lifeblood of Britain. On the 18th of May 1941, it set off under Admiral Günther Lütjens and Commander Ernst Lindemann, accompanied by the light cruiser, Prinz Eugen. Three days later, they were spotted near Bergen, Norway.

The British sent out the HMS Hood. Launched in 1918, it measured 860’7” in length and 104’2” at the beam. It had been upgraded in 1939, but not enough. More had to be done, but the war’s outbreak forced the Hood to patrol Iceland and the Faroe Islands to keep the Germans at bay.

HMS Hood.

When first commissioned, it was the biggest and fastest warship in the world, securing Britain’s grip over her colonies. The Hood, therefore, represented the height of British technology, naval power, and imperial might – making it a beloved icon.
With it went the HMS Prince of Wales (PoW), which was more up-to-date. Unfortunately, the technology was so cutting-edge that much of it was untested. It had ten 14” guns, but eight were housed in malfunctioning turrets. The Royal Navy knew this, but the Bismarck’s sighting had forced their hand.
The Hood and the Bismarck were almost evenly matched. Both had eight 15” guns that could shoot 1,700-pound shells over 15 miles. But the Hood could only fire two shells a minute compared to the Bismarck’s three. The latter was also more heavily armored, while the Hood was less so because it was designed for speed.
The British tried to reach the Denmark Strait before the Germans so they could “cross the T” before them. This strategy requires positioning the length of one’s ship to the front of an enemy ship, since ships have more guns at their sides than they do at the front. The one who crosses the T can then fire more salvos than the one who gets crossed.

Aerial reconnaissance photo taken by Flying Officer Michael Suckling shows Bismarck anchored in Norway.

But the Hood and the PoW got there too late before dawn on May 24, so it was the Germans who crossed the British T off the western coast of Iceland. The Hood was sunk at a little past 6 AM and the PoW had to retreat after suffering extensive damage.
Before it did, however, it managed three solid hits – puncturing the Bismarck’s fuel tanks and flooding its front lower decks with seawater. So the Bismarck headed toward Nazi-occupied France for repairs and since the Prinz Eugen could do nothing more, it headed off toward the Atlantic. Despite the damage, the Bismarck was still heavily armed and the captain felt  confident about reaching France by dawn on May 27th.
Twenty-one British destroyers, thirteen cruisers, six battleships, and two aircraft carriers gave chase… but the German ship had vanished.
On May 26 at 10:30 AM, the Bismarck was found a mere 700 miles off the French coast. In another 500 miles, the sea and air would be filled with German ships and planes – so a British fleet closed in from the north, while another came in from the south.

Bismarck firing her main battery during the battle. Photo Credit.

At 7 PM, fifteen Fairey Swordfish torpedo bombers took off from the HMS Ark Royal and split into three groups to attack. Lieutenant-Commander John “Jock” Moffat flew one of them. As he broke through the cloud cover, he was awed at the sight of the German behemoth.
The Swordfish plummeted at 115 miles per hour. The Bismarck desperately filled the air with flak, so the pilots dived even lower, hugging the water and hoping the ship’s guns couldn’t aim that low. In a worst case scenario, they might just survive a sea crash.

A Swordfish returns to Ark Royal after making the torpedo attack against the Bismarck.

At 2,000 yards, Moffat prepared to launch his only torpedo, when he heard a voice, “Not yet, Jock! Not yet!”
Moffat jerked and looked around. It was his Observer, Flight-Lieutenant JD “Dusty” Miller. The man was standing on the right wing with his butt in the air, head somewhere below the plane’s belly.
Moffat understood. The sea was rough. If his torpedo hit the crest of a wave, it could veer off course. Miller wanted to make sure it fell into a trough so their only weapon had a chance. But the longer they took, the greater their chances of getting hit.
“Let her go, Jock!”

The Fairey Swordfish biplane torpedo bomber LS326 built in 1934. It has been refurbished and was photographed in flight on 1 July 2012. Photo Credit.

Moffat released his torpedo.
“We’ve got a runner!” Miller screamed.
The Bismarck turned left sharply – a mistake. The torpedo hit the left rear, tearing a hole through the hull and causing rivets to pop off the bulkhead. The ship’s twin rudders, angled for the turn, jammed. Power died, forcing the engineers to restart everything. Mechanics tried to fix the rudders, but too much water was rushing in.
With rudders stuck at 12° to port, the Bismarck turned around and headed back toward the British fleet. Within minutes, it was turning around in circles. Lütjens informed Berlin and vowed to die fighting.

Map showing the course of Bismarck and the ships that pursued her. Photo Credit.

The British showed no mercy. They surrounded the Bismarck, forcing it to fire in all directions. Unable to maneuver, it became a sitting duck and ran out of ammunition at 9:31 AM the next day. Despite the lack of return fire, the Royal Navy kept up their barrage till it sank at 10:39 AM.
They did try to rescue survivors, but a U-boat scare forced them to retreat with only 115 Germans (out of 2,092). The rest were left to their fate. Germany only found out about the sinking from a News Network at around noon. By the time they reached the scene, only five more men were alive to be retrieved. But not Lütjens. He kept his word, as did Lindemann.
Thanks to an outdated biplane, the Bismarck’s only combat mission lasted a mere 215 hours. From that moment on, naval warfare changed forever. The plane was now as important as the ship in naval warfare.

HMS Dorsetshire picking up survivors.

Battlecruisers....

I have blogged extensively about Battlecruisers, like I said, this is funny coming from an Army guy, what can I say.  I was fascinated by combat ships since I was a kid.  I will add the most famous battlecruiser in the world, the HMS Hood.  People forget that the Hood was a battlecruiser, and she exemplifies the attributes of a battlecruiser and the weaknesses that ultimately sank her  when she went up against the biggest battleship the Germans had, The SMS Bismark.   I had fun doing research on this post :)

HMS HOOD

Their capabilities allowed them to fill three roles. They could work with the dreadnoughts in the main battle fleet, adding extra firepower. They could form the heart of smaller squadrons, or they could act independently, their speed and firepower enabling them to contribute to the war without support from other ships.

HMS Shannon, a Minotaur-class armoured cruiser, 1908–09.

In 1909, the Royal Navy was the first to launch battlecruisers. The faith the British placed in the ships was reflected in their names – the HMS Indomitable, Inflexible, and Invincible. They had a displacement of 17,250 tons, similar to the original HMS Dreadnought, but thinner armor to allow for greater speed. Each one carried eight 12-inch guns, just short of the ten 12-inch guns carried by most dreadnoughts.
The first batch of battlecruisers was followed by another set of three carrying similar weapons. Then a process of escalation began, as the designers tried to fit them with ever-greater firepower. The HMS Tiger, a unique battlecruiser laid down in 1912, carried eight 13.5-inch guns. The Renown and Repulse, launched at the height of the war in 1916, had six guns each, but they were powerful 15-inch weapons.
By 1917, the Royal Navy had built 12 battlecruisers, more than any other nation.

HMS Tiger at anchor, 1916–17.

Britain’s first battlecruisers were designed and begun in secret, during the naval arms race. Even when they were launched, not every nation rushed to imitate Fisher’s innovation. By the start of the war, only Britain, Germany, and Japan had battlecruisers in action.

SMS Moltke

The First German battlecruiser was completed in 1910, and several more were produced during the years that followed. While sticking with the broad outline laid out by Fisher, the Germans brought a slightly different approach to battlecruisers. They placed less emphasis on speed and firepower, giving their battlecruisers instead better armor than the British ones. Their first battlecruisers carried 11.1-inch guns although ships built later had the 12-inch guns the British had started with.
The Japanese could not afford to produce as many ships as other powers, so they chose to focus on quality over quantity. Their Kongo-class battlecruisers had their design changed to incorporate 14-inch guns. They also had slightly heavier armor than the British ships. The first Japanese battlecruiser was built in Britain while they were allies; later ships were produced in Japan.

Imperial Japanese Navy battlecruiser Haruna at Yokosuka, Japan.

At first, the battlecruisers were successful. At the Battle of Heligoland Bight in August 1914, they turned the tide of battle in favor of the British by sinking three German light cruisers. While on detached service in the Falklands in late 1914, the HMS Inflexible and Invincible sank two less-powerful German cruisers, confirming their role as destroyers of light ships.
German battlecruisers were sent out on some successful independent expeditions. They bombarded towns on the British east coast, raising concerns among the British public about the Royal Navy’s ability to protect them. The Germans gave a battlecruiser, the SMS Goeben, to the Ottoman Empire. It contributed to bringing the Turks into the war and helped them fight against British and Russian fleets.

Goeben in port, date unknown.

However, the successes concealed problems with the battlecruiser design.
One of the biggest issues was that the captains of the ships regarded them as suitable ships of the line. With their large size, heavy armament, and impressive label, commanders mistakenly tried to use them in straight fights against dreadnoughts and other battlecruisers. Their armor, reduced to increase their speed, was not designed to withstand the sort of guns those ships carried.
In May 1916, the Battle of Jutland laid the truth bare for all to see. Single salvos of shells proved enough to sink three British battlecruisers, the Indefatigable, the Invincible, and the Queen Mary. Each was blown apart and sent into the depths. On the German side, the Lützow was sunk, and other battlecruisers limped home.

 SMS Seydlitz steaming home severely damaged after Jutland

A combination of good seamanship and precautions introduced to contain explosions stopped more from being lost.
Battlecruisers had faced a major battle, and their weakness had been exposed.

British battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable underway in coastal waters just before the Battle of Jutland.

Fortunately, another machine emerged to serve part of the role filled by battlecruisers. The growth of naval aviation created an alternative way of providing reconnaissance for battle fleets.
No more battlecruisers were lost during WWI, as both sides learned the lessons of Jutland and used them appropriately. The Royal Navy used the Royal Navy Air Service with Sopwith Pups and also non Rigid Airships to provide reconnaissance for the Home Fleet during the blockade. 

Following the war, there was still some interest in building battlecruisers, although with a different design. Then the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 brought a halt to the naval arms race, and interest in battlecruisers evaporated. By the time naval power began to grow again, designers had moved on to improved options.
Ultimately, battlecruisers were too vulnerable for ships of their size and firepower.

Was the Bismarck a failure? or was the decisions of the Captain a failure.

 

Why did Germany’s epic battleship Bismarck fail so quickly? Was it inevitable that such a creation would be an immediate lightning rod for all of the Allied forces?

Despite being the largest battleship that the Germans had ever built, the Bismarck’s failure was expected by many. The ship itself was built to manifest German greatness in the eyes of the Führer and to act as a motivational tool for the German public.

The British Royal Navy boasted the world’s greatest navy entering World War 2 and despite losing over 50,000 sailors to the Germans, had a considerable upper hand on the German navy throughout World War II. Bismarck was an attempt by Germany to try and match the greatness of the Royal Navy.

If we analyze the situation that Bismarck faced, we might find some internal reasons regarding the Germans that led to the failure of the famous battleship. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss some of the mistakes that the Germans made which ultimately sealed the fate of Bismarck.

A significant factor of the failure was that the Germans made crucial mistakes when designing the battleship.

Because the German battleship designers lacked experience, they followed outdated design philosophies that were used in battleships during World War I.

Consequently, the design of Bismarck had inferior defensive capabilities. For example, its main belt armor was thin and installed vertically, decreasing its horizontal defensive ability. Similarly, the Bismarck’s upper and main armored decks were not strong enough, as evidenced by the lack of protection on its turrets.

Moreover, likely due to the anachronistic designs, its defenses against air combatants was subpar, leaving it open to Allied air strikes. Therefore, even with an advanced manufacturing process, the Germans were not able to produce a battleship that was powerful enough because of their outdated design.

On the other hand, the Royal Navy had only built 2 battleships, HMS Rodney and HMS Nelson, and no battlecruisers between 1918 – 1939, thus their fleet was almost all WW1 vintage.

The HMS Rodney was built in 1927, while only the HMS Prince of Wales was in any sense modern. However, the Prince of Wales was still so fresh that in fact she still had dockyard workers on board. The Royal Navy hardly possessed an elite and modern battlecruiser unit.

In addition to the outdated design of Bismarck, the Germans had not realized that battleships were no longer the preeminent weapon.

The importance of the air force increased exponentially during World War II. On May 22nd 1941, the Royal Air Force spotted that German battleships had left the harbor.

Multiple days later on May 26th, more aircraft had found and tracked the Bismarck, something that traditional vessels would not be able to do.

During the final battle, the aircraft dealt the nail in the coffin for the mighty German vessel. The skies were now where wars were won due to wartime innovation, and the British had caught on to this trend, manufacturing two aircraft carriers to assist in the war effort and ultimately proving that they were superior to traditional approaches.

As a result, aircraft carriers would become the overlord of the sea.

Another serious mistake was that the German military did not emphasize the importance of information security. Prior to the sinking of Bismarck, during the Rhine Exercise, the British military had already deciphered Germany’s military codes and destroyed several German replenishment oilers. This had ruined Germans’ Rhine Exercise.

Then, on May 25th 1941, after Bismarck was damaged and on its way back to the harbor, a German admiral on the ship, Johann Günther Lütjens, sent a telegram out from the ship to the military command. Even though Johann Günther Lütjens’ tactics were successful and created opportunities for Bismarck to retreat, his decision of sending this telegram was the most serious mistake he had ever made. It was so deadly that it finally led to Bismarck’s sinking and his own death.

When the admiral sent out the telegram, he was too confident that Bismarck had already escaped from the Royal Navy.

However, the Royal Navy captured this and successfully captured Bismarck’s location. Had the admiral never sent this, the British military would have resorted to searching blindly on the sea by navy and air force for the Bismarck. Then, Bismarck may have been able to have retreated safely.

But, was retreating really an option? We must also remember that Lütjens was under orders to attack British shipping, so he wouldn’t have wanted to retreat. His signal gave his general location, but it was patrolling aircraft that located Bismarck.

Had Bismarck retreated, HMS Hood, the largest battlecruiser in the British Navy, would have been spared being sunk by the Bismarck on May 24, 1941. Hood was sunk in a matter of minutes, losing all but 3 of its 1,418 crewmembers. The legendary battle between Hood & Bismarck was chronicled in Theodore Taylor’s book, H.M.S. Hood Vs Bismark: The Battleship Battle.

One more important mistake that the Germans made was regarding Bismarck’s fuel. At that time, Bismarck was designed with a maximum speed faster than most of the British ships. In addition, Bismarck’s fuel capacity was designed for an eight-day sailing while maintaining its maximum speed. Therefore, even if Bismarck had lost the battle, it would still have had the ability to retreat safely.

Bismarck under construction by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, 1938

Lütjens’ signal was instrumental in helping the Royal Navy locate Bismarck, and the damage received from the Prince of Wales was significant, but it was the airstrike that damaged the screws and the rudders that was the decisively fatal blow in the end. Once Ark Royal’s aircraft (open cockpit biplanes) had hit, Bismarck needed repairs, and there was only one dock she could go to in France. The Royal Navy then had a good idea of her course and intercepted her as a result.

Moreover, after deciding to retreat, Bismarck had been sailing with high speed for three days. As a result, when it was found by the Royal Navy, there was not much left in its fuel stores. So that maintaining high-speed sailing was not possible even if the crew had been able to repair the broken rudder.

The significant factor wasn’t Bismarck’s fuel state, but the ship’s inability to maneuver, which doomed her. Ark Royal’s airstrike damaged the rudders and in the sea state it proved too difficult to steer by engines.

This left her vulnerable to Rodney and King George V and their attendant cruisers and destroyers. At the end, Rodney closed to 3000 yards (point blank range for 16 inch guns) to finish off Bismarck. ‘After the sinking, Admiral John Tovey said, “The Bismarck had put up a most gallant fight against impossible odds worthy of the old days of the Imperial German Navy, and she went down with her colours flying.”‘ (wiki) Bismarck’s great threat to the British nation was her great power.

Had she escaped into the North Atlantic she and her consort, the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen, would have been free to savage the vital convoy routes between North America and the UK.

HMS Rodney firing on Bismarck, which can be seen burning in the distance

In fact after close observation by the explorer Robert Ballard when he found Bismarck at the bottom of the sea in 1989 it was discovered that despite being bombarded at close range Bismarck was mostly intact. “A detailed underwater survey of the wreck in 2002 showed that the sustained close-range shelling was largely ineffective in the effort to sink the ship, the many torpedoes launched at Bismarck were also almost completely ineffective, and the massive plating of the armour deck was also found to be virtually intact.” (Wiki)

Both ships were vastly faster and vastly better armed than convoy escorts, which would have fought gallantly and died futilely defending their convoys. The scattering merchant ships themselves would have been easy prey to the battleship and her heavy cruiser attendant. U-boat henchmen lurking nearby would have completed the destruction – PQ17 is evidence enough of that.

HMS Dorsetshire picking up survivors

Small wonder then that the Royal Navy mobilized every available capital ship north of Gibraltar to deal with the menace. In addition continued to devote disproportionate levels of effort to counter Bismarck’s sister, Tirpitz until she too sunk. The British Admiralty has known since the days of Pepys that command of the sea is what kept Britain safe from invasion and was the anvil of victory over oppression in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries.

The Fairey Swordfish.

The first time I heard of this airplane,was when I read a book called "Sink the Bismark" by CS Forester,

    My copy was printed in 1976, I bought it from the Stars and Stripes bookstore in Frankfurt Germany where my Dad was stationed at.

The Second World War was a period of greatly accelerated development in the field of aviation: this was the first war in which jet fighters were used, and bigger bombers than the world had ever seen rained down death from the skies.
It is tempting to think that these types of airplane – the biggest, fastest, most powerful, most technologically advanced models – were solely responsible for winning the air war.
However, in focusing entirely on the flashiest, most impressive planes, it’s easy to lose sight of the plainer, simpler and smaller aircraft that played an equally important role in the Allied victory. One of these models was the Fairey Swordfish, nicknamed the “Stringbag,” a basic torpedo bomber biplane used extensively by the Fleet Air Arm of the Royal Navy during WWII.
 

A Swordfish I during a training flight from RNAS Crail, circa 1939–1945

It was one of these humble planes that, reminiscent of Luke Skywalker taking out the Death Star in Star Wars, managed to disable one of the German Kriegsmarine’s most gigantic ships. Another Stringbag was also the first Allied plane to sink a German U-boat, and then later yet another of these unassuming airplanes was the first to sink a U-boat at night.
Stringbags also relentlessly harried the Axis shipping fleet in the Mediterranean, accounting for over a million tons sunk by the end of the war – not a bad tally for an outdated biplane!

Workers carrying out salvage and repair work on a wing of a Swordfish

Looks and performance-wise, the Fairey Swordfish bore a much closer resemblance to the airplanes of the First World War rather than those of the Second. With its open cockpit, fixed landing gear and its pair of stacked wings, by no stretch of one’s imagination could this humble plane have been described as “cutting edge” even in 1933, when the first prototype was built.
However, despite its outdated design, it was no less important to the Allied war effort than its more technologically-advanced compatriots. Indeed, the Swordfish’s antiquated appearance was deceptive – not so much in terms of its flat-out performance, but rather in terms of the roles it was able to perform.

A Fairey Swordfish floatplane being hoisted aboard the battleship HMS Malaya in October 1941

In addition to being armed with two basic but reliable 7.7mm machine guns, one fixed in position for the pilot in the front and one trainable at the rear for the gunner, the Swordfish was able to carry a wide variety of ordnance: anti-ship mines, depth charges, bombs, flares, or a ship-sinking 1,610-pound torpedo.
The plane was also used for a variety of roles, including reconnaissance, bombing, escort duty, or naval artillery spotting.

Swordfish on the after deck of HMS Victorious, 24 May 1941. The next day, nine Swordfish from Victorious attacked Bismarck.

Because of the variety of ordnance the Swordfish could carry and the diversity of its roles, it was given the nickname “Stringbag,” likening the plane to a popular style in women’s handbags at the time. Humorous as it was, the nickname was apt and it stuck.
As a basic three-seater biplane with a simple Bristol Pegasus motor that cranked out 690-odd horsepower, the Stringbag wasn’t going to be breaking any speed records in the air. However, the simple design meant that maintenance of the aircraft was easy, and that the planes were reliable.

A Swordfish, circa 1943–1944

The twin wings meant that the Stringbag had an excellent lift and could take off or land on a relatively short strip of land. This made Stringbags perfect for use on naval aircraft carriers, with their very limited landing and takeoff space.
Stringbags were also extraordinarily maneuverable, making up for their slow speed with excellent agility. Their fabric-covered, all-metal under-structures were sturdy enough to deal with harsh landings, and this meant that they were ideal for night use – an excellent advantage, when they could fly all but invisible to Axis ships or other targets below.

A Swordfish taking off from the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, with another passing by astern, circa 1939

These planes weren’t without their disadvantages, of course. They were at a severe disadvantage when it came to air-to-air combat against Axis fighter planes, and the open cockpit meant that the men in the plane would suffer immensely in the cold. Early in the war, Stringbags didn’t have communication radios, so they had to rely on hand-held signalling devices.
Nonetheless their advantages generally outweighed their disadvantages, and Stringbags saw extensive use throughout the war. In one of the most famous incidents in which they were involved, a Stringbag was instrumental in the sinking of one of the Kriegsmarine’s mightiest ships, the battleship Bismarck.

The Royal Navy’s HMS Ark Royal in 1939, with Swordfish biplane fighters passing overhead. The British aircraft carrier was involved in the crippling of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941

The Bismarck was, at the time of its production, the most powerful warship ever made. In a sortie into the Atlantic aimed at crippling Britain’s crucial supply lines, the Bismarck battled and sank the British battle cruiser HMS Hood.
Realizing the Bismarck had to be stopped, Britain launched a pursuit, but the Bismarck managed to evade her pursuers. The only ship close enough to have a chance of disabling the giant was HMS Ark Royal, which had a few Stringbags equipped with torpedoes aboard. The Stringbags took off an hour before sunset on May 26, 1941 to take on the German behemoth.

 H.M.S. Hood

As the Stringbags, each carrying a single torpedo, approached the Bismarck they dived low, hoping to evade the flak that filled the air from the ship’s anti-aircraft guns. One Stringbag, piloted by Lieutenant Commander John Moffat, got the Bismarck in its sights.
Moffat and his observer, Flight Lieutenant JD Miller, had to time the release of their torpedo with extreme precision. They only had one chance to do this, and if they missed or the torpedo hit the crest of a wave in the extremely choppy sea, it was mission over. With flak flying all around them, and Miller waiting for the exact moment, Moffat’s hands were surely sweating on those controls.

A Swordfish III of RAF 119 Squadron being refueled at Maldegem, Belgium, (1944–1945). The fairing of the aircraft’s centimetric radar can be seen below the engine

Finally, the moment came, and the torpedo was dropped. Against all odds it hit home, striking the mighty battleship in a small area of vulnerability: the rudder, which the torpedo succeeded in jamming mid-turn.
With her rudder jammed to port, and thus unable to move in anything but endless circles, the Bismarck became a sitting duck. British naval ships later surrounded the Bismarck and eventually sank her after extensive bombardment.

Stringbags also played a key role in the night attack on Italy’s Taranto naval base. Two waves of Stringbags launched a surprise attack on the naval base on the night of November 11, 1940, and succeeded in destroying or disabling the bulk of Italy’s naval fleet – an attack that would be carefully studied by the Japanese, who would use similar tactics to attack Pearl Harbor.
Stringbags also saw extensive use in taking out Axis shipping lines, especially in the Mediterranean, where they sunk over a million tons throughout the war. All in all, this humble airplane proved its worth to the British Royal Navy many times over during the course of WWII.

Battleship or Battlecruiser...?

I shamelessly cribbed this from the internet.   I do have a fascination with Battleships, I have posted about this kind of stuff a lot.  Kinda funny for an Army guy I suppose.  I still believe that the Navy would be smart to recommission the North Carolina Class Battleships, the total hours on the hulls are a lot lower than most of the ships in the fleet now.   I added some pics to the article and a blurp about the "Montana Class Battleships" at the bottom of the article.


On the surface, history can appear a rigid, unmoving thing. That once something is historically established, it remains that way forever. However, the truth of the matter is that history is largely pliable. The more blurry facts can be easily be bent to support a particular view. A small, but popular opinion is that the Iowa class battleships of the US Navy could be considered battlecruisers. What are battlecruisers and why would anybody think the Iowa class is like them? I will look at the rationale for this opinion and refine the lines that separate battleship from battlecruiser. With a bit of digging, we will find out whether we need to refer to these dreadnaughts as the Iowa class battlecruisers from now on.

Iowa Class

Why would the Iowa class be considered Battlecruisers?

 

1) Their armor was unable to withstand the firepower of their own guns.
2) They sacrificed armor to achieve higher speeds.
It is true that these ships were exceedingly fast and that armor wise they were a departure from traditional practice. However, is this enough to brand them as battlecruisers? To compare, let us examine the concept behind battlecruisers and see what made them different from battleships.

What Are Battlecruisers?

HMS Hood

HMS Hood, the largest battlecruiser ever built. Her weak protection became her undoing in her famous fight against the battleship Bismarck.
Battlecruisers were a short-lived vessel only used during the first half of the 20th century. They were conceived on the idea that faster capital ships would be both more effective and more flexible than the slower battleships in combat. Battlecruisers were designed to fulfill the following criteria:

• Use their superior speed to chase down slower vessels.
• Outgun weaker vessels while being able to outrun more powerful ones.
• Harass enemy shipping lines and disrupt trade.
• Support the main fleet by defending against cruisers.

To achieve these objectives, battlecruisers were designed for maximum speed. They achieved this speed by sacrificing armor, firepower, or a combination of the two. For the most part, battlecruisers were designed for speeds greater than 25 knots while the slower battleships were only capable of 21 knots.
At first, battlecruisers were fairly effective when deployed in the manner in which they were intended. The Battles of Heligoland Bight and the Falkland Islands were instances of battlecruisers fulfilling their roles and destroying enemy cruisers. However, as the war progressed, battlecruisers became increasingly less useful. Coordinated actions by large fleets ensured that they were only as fast as he slowest vessels involved. In latter engagements like the battle of Jutland, they fared poorly when forced to directly engage the more heavily armored battleships.


To rectify these weaknesses, cruisers became increasingly armored to the point that they were almost battleships. On the other hand, battleships were becoming faster, to the point that newer designs were as fast as battlecruisers. These advances caused the line between battleship and battlecruiser to blur.

Are the Iowa Class actually Battlecruisers?

At first glance the Iowa class vessels were very similar to battlecruisers. They were directly designed to hunt down and destroy weaker ships such as the Kongo Class battleships. They were lightly armored compared to their displacement, especially compared to previous US battleships. However, they also were very different in several important areas. First, lets take a look at some of the arguments listed above.

Their armor was unable to withstand the firepower of their own guns

A Forward Salvo from the Main cannons.

On the subject of a vessel being armored to withstand the firepower of its own guns, this was never a method of classifying battlecruisers.  No ship is armored enough to be completely impervious to its own guns. Even the mighty Yamato was vulnerable to its own guns at certain ranges, but that does not make it a battlecruiser. Most ships are designed to be immune to large caliber shells at certain ranges, normally those that combat is expected to take place. This is what’s known as an immunity zone.

While the Iowa class did have an immunity zone against its own guns, it was smaller than US designers would have preferred. This was largely due to advances in technology. The Iowa class was originally designed to withstand the US Mark 5 2240lb AP shell. The designers were able to create  reasonable zone of immunity from this shell. However, after the designs were largely finished, the Mark 8 2700 “Super Heavy” shell was introduced. This shell offered much greater capability and was thus harder to protect against. When combined with the 16″/50 cannon, the Iowa class had what could be the best naval gun put into service. At long ranges, the cannon was almost equal to the Yamato’s larger 18″ guns. Armoring against this shell would have required a much greater displacement than what the Iowa class offered.
As to the idea that battleships must be armored to resist their own guns, As best as I could tell, this myth arose from the practices of naval designers when creating armor schemes for their warships. Not having access to foreign weapons, they used their own weapons. Thus, they designed their own ships to resist their own guns. It was simply a matter of convenience.

They sacrificed armor to achieve higher speeds

Conning Tower Photo – The heavy 17″ armor used to protect the conning tower of the Iowa class.

This myth is untrue, though it does unveil some rather interesting details.  While the designers never sacrificed armor when creating the Iowa class, they also didn’t go out of their way to add more armor. As stated above, they did work to ensure that the class was armored to withstand its initial shells. However, the preceding South Dakota was sufficiently armored as well. In fact, the armor scheme of the Iowa class was directly based on the South Dakotas with some minor improvements.
While the Iowa class might not have been armored as much as US designers would have preferred, it was still very much a protected battleship. It was designed to engage battleships in direct combat, survive whatever shells came their way, and emerge the victor. This is a stark contrast to the types of combat that typical battlecruisers were to engage in. At the very least, one could make the argument that the Iowa class was a faster model of a preceding battleship.

Conclusions: Battleship or Battlecruiser

Based on design and the intentions of designers, the Iowa class were battleships. They were designed like battleships, they were armored like battleships, and they could certainly fight other battleships. However, I would go so far as to argue that their design was unique. Perhaps a blend of ideas behind both battleships and battlecruisers to a degree.

As battlecruisers gained armor and battleships gained speed, the line separating the vessels blurred. The Iowa class exists in that blurry area. It was a battleship that incorporated some of the doctrine that inspired battlecruisers. Unlike battlecruisers that were designed to chase down and destroy enemy cruisers, the Iowa class was designed with bigger prey in mind. They were designed to hunt down enemy battleships and other large vessels. Unlike battleships, that got faster through the advancement of engine technology, the Iowa class was designed to be fast. They were the only class of battleship that could be considered true fast battleships in that speed was a main goal in their design.
In many ways, the Iowa class took the best features of both battleships and battlecruisers to create a specialized class. The real question is what the Iowa class would have inspired had the age of dreadnaughts not ended when it did. How fast would have subsequent battleships become? Unfortunately, we will never know.  Although the proposed Montana Class Battleships would have given some ideas...

 

Monday Music "Sink the Bismark" by Johnny Horton

  I have blogged about the Bismark more than once and the effect that the ship had on the German psyche and the British, especially when Bismark sunk the Hood.  HMS Hood was a prewar battlecruiser that was the pride of the British fleet and was sunk in a 15 minute battle with the Bismark with 3 people that survived the Hood sinking. 

"Sink the Bismark" (later "Sink the Bismarck") is a march song by country music singer Johnny Horton and songwriter Tillman Franks, based on the pursuit and eventual sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941, during World War II. Horton released this song through Columbia Records in 1960, when it reached #3 on the charts. As originally released, the record label used the common misspelling "Bismark"; this error was corrected for later releases of the song. It was inspired by the 1960 British war movie Sink the Bismarck! and was in fact (with the producer John Brabourne's approval) commissioned from Johnny Horton by 20th Century Fox who were worried about the subject's relative obscurity. While the song was used in U.S. theater trailers for the film, it was not used in the film itself.

The Evolution of the Iowa Class

I am still busy, but I was taking a break from studying and was doing a bit of surfing and ran across this article and thought it was very neat and it had a lot of pics I have never seen before.  I hope to continue blogging over the weekend of all goes well:)  I still would like to see one of those ships to be recommissioned but with the lethality of today's missiles I am not sure that the battleships would survive and the swarm of missiles that the Chinese  opposing force would launch.  I am a student of History and I see parallels between the Iowa's and another famous ship that represented a country and a navy during the Prewar Years.

 The "Mighty" Hood

H.M.S Hood flew the flag and was the embodiment of the British Empire during the prewar years and unfortunately by the time WWII rolled around, the Hood was very obsolete.  She was due for upgrades in Armor, fire control systems and anti-aircraft defenses in the late 1930's, but the bean counters put off the upgrades that would have most likely saved the ship when she fought the Bismark in the Battle of the Denmark Strait and was destroyed by an explosion that was endemic of the British Battle Cruisers.  The British knew of the flaw since Jutland but never fixed the problem.

From the time that USS Iowa was laid down in 1940 until today, the Iowa class battleships have been around for 78 years. During that time, the ships underwent many changes to help them adapt to the type of conflict they were engaged in. In this article, I gathered a number of photos from those years and organized them into this collection. They help to show how these warships looked throughout their long and illustrious careers.

Iowa Class Battleships From 1940 to Present

September 30, 1940. Workers lay out the bottom hull plates for the battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) about one month into her construction. Iowa would be the leadship for a new class of battleship design was free of the limitations imposed by the Second London Naval Treaty.

1941. The ceremonial driving of the first rivet for the battleship USS Missouri.

December 7, 1942. The Battleship USS New Jersey slides down the ways on the one year anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. The day that saw the loss of many battleship of the United States Navy now sees one of its most powerful take to the water.

1943. The hull of the USS Wisconsin (BB-64) looks like she is ready to take to the water. In a few months she would finally slide down the ways during her christening on December 7, 1943.

November 1944. USS Wisconsin (BB-64) ties up to the hulk of the battleship USS Oklahoma (BB-37) while stopping at Pearl Harbor. Wisconsin was 304′ longer than Oklahoma and displaced almost twice as much. Oklahoma was sunk at Pearl Harbor three years earlier. Now it was Wisconsin’s turn to go on the offensive as she headed to the front lines.

September 2, 1945. Swarms of aircraft fly over the battleship Missouri (BB-63) during the surrender to the Allies by the Empire of Japan.

April 5, 1946. USS Missouri anchored off of Istanbul, Turkey. She brought home the body of the Turkish Ambassador Mehmet Munir Ertegun. She is accompanied by the Turkish battlecruiser Yavuz, formally the battlecruiser SMS Goeben of the Imperial German Navy.

May 24, 1947. USS Iowa (BB-61) anchored in San Francisco Bay.

June 1948. USS New Jersey being moved from the New York Navy Yard to the Bayonne Shipyard in New Jersey for decommissioning. The dome shaped structures adorning her are covers for her 40mm anti-aircraft guns.

Summer 1949. USS Missouri tied up to the pier at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Photos like this really show off just how amazingly large these leviathans truly were.

October 21, 1950. USS Missouri fires a salvo into Chong Jin, Korea. Missouri was the first battleship to arrive off of Korea and she quickly set to work pummeling targets of opportunity. The firepower of the battleships was devastating to North Korean and Chinese forces.

November 10, 1951. USS New Jersey (BB-62) unleashes a broadside into the region surrounding the 38th Parallel during the Korean War. A haze of smoke in the background marks the location of a previous salvo.

April 1952. USS Wisconsin is used to test the lifting power of the largest drydock available to the United States Navy, AFDB-1. AFDB-1, named Artisan was first used during the Second World War. It was one of the only floating drydocks capable of handling an Iowa class battleship. She was moved to Guam to serve as a forward repair base during the Korean War.

1953. New Jersey lends her firepower during the Korean War. Judging by the elevation of her 16″ guns, she is firing at extreme range. The Iowa class were capable of sending a 2,700lb shell to just over 42,345 yards (24.05 miles).

June 7, 1954. All four battleships of the Iowa class steam together as Battleship Division 2. This was the only time that all four sisters were together. The ships (from nearest to farthest) are USS Iowa, USS Wisconsin, USS Missouri, and USS New Jersey.

1955. USS New Jersey takes on fuel from the fleet oiler USS Mississinewa (AO-144) along with the destroyer USS Bordelon (DDR-881). New Jersey was operating in the Mediterranean Sea at this time.

May 1956. USS Wisconsin steams to port with a chunk of her bow missing. On the sixth of May, she had collided with the destroyer USS Eaton (DD-510). Wisconsin was repaired by replacing her damaged bow with that of her never finished sister, USS Kentucky (BB-66).

June 13, 1957. USS Iowa at Hampton Roads, Virginia. She was there to take part in the International Naval review.

1958. USS Wisconsin cruising off of Hampton Roads. This was one of the last cruises she would conduct before being decommissioned later that year.

February 6, 1959. The sixth ship of the Iowa class, USS Kentucky (BB-66) is towed up the Chesapeake Bay on her way to the scrappers. Her deck is littered with unused material including 5″ gun barrels and their turrets. Kentucky and her sister, Illinois (BB-65), were both cancelled during construction.

1962. Three Iowa class battleships mothballed at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. From back to front: USS Iowa, USS New Jersey, and USS Wisconsin. New Jersey was originally stored at Bayonne, New Jersey but had been moved to Philadelphia the previous year.

July 4, 1963. USS Missouri continues sit in mothballs at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Missouri was mothballed on the West Coast while her sisters were on the East Coast.

April 10, 1964. Despite her mothballed status, Missouri served as the location of the memorial service that honored General Douglas MacArthur following his passing.

April 1965. The battleships New Jersey (Left) and Iowa (Right) tied up together at Philadelphia. Wisconsin had been temporarily moved to another location at the time.

1966. Though she as not a battleship, the fast combat support ship USS Sacramento (AOE-1) was very much related to the Iowa class. Before scrapping, the boilers and turbines of the sixth Iowa class battleship USS Kentucky were removed. Half of the power plant would be placed into USS Sacramento while the other half would go to her sister USS Camden (AOE-2).

April 1967. Three of the Iowa class sisters tied up together in mothballs. From left to right: USS Wisconsin (BB-64), USS New Jersey (BB-62), and USS Iowa (BB-61).

September 11, 1968. USS New Jersey cruising off of Hawaii before she would head for Vietnam. In interesting feature of this photograph is the 40mm gun tubs just forward of the 5″ guns. These were used as swimming pools by the crew. New Jersey was the only one of her sisters to have such a lavish feature!

March 1969. USS New Jersey (BB-62) fires a shell into South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. During the war, New Jersey performed brilliantly. During her brief time off Vietnam, she fired 5,688 rounds of 16 inch shells, and 14,891 rounds of 5-inch shells.

March 19, 1970. The battleship Missouri is mothballed at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. She is accompanied by several other ships including the cruisers Roanoke (CL-145) and Worcester (CL-144). Perhaps one of the few images showing America’s last battleships alongside its last light cruisers.

July 1974. A large assortment of mothballed ships at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. USS Missouri is at the bottom of the photo while her sister USS New Jersey can be seen farther up. Following her tour of service off Vietnam, New Jersey was decommissioned and placed at here.

1976. The battleship Missouri still quietly moored at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

1978. USS Iowa (Right) and USS Wisconsin (Left) mothballed at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. Iowa was mothballed from 1958 until 1984. Wisconsin was mothballed from 1958 until 1988. They are accompanied by the aircraft carrier USS Shangri-La (CVS-38).

April 1980. Years of neglect are apparent in this photo taken from the bow of USS Wisconsin.

1981. The Iowa class battleship USS Missouri (BB-63) and USS New Jersey (BB-62) at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. Due to her being reactivated for service in Vietnam, New Jersey looks very different from Missouri. 

December 28, 1982. The USS New Jersey is recommissioned at Long Beach California with President Ronald Regan in attendance. The Iowa class had finally returned to service thirteen years after being decommissioned.

June 17, 1983. USS Iowa (BB-61) undergoing modernization at the Ingalls Shipbuilding Yard to prepare for her recommissioning. Following her modernization, she would finally be recommissioned on April 28, 1984.

July 1, 1984. With a thunderous roar, USS Iowa demonstrates her firepower by firing all nine of her 16″/50 as well as six of her 5″/38 guns. The blast of her main guns is easily seen o the water surrounding them.

November 19, 1985. USS Iowa (BB-61) uses all of her 212,000 shaft horsepower during a full power run in the Chesapeake Bay. She is kicking up an unbelievable amount of water in her wake.

December 30, 1986. USS New Jersey (BB-62) fires all of its 16″ guns during a spectacular firepower demonstration.

October 17, 1987. The Battleship USS Iowa (BB-61) leads the aircraft carriers Coral Sea (CV-43) and Saratoga (CV-60) plus their respective battlegroups into Augusta Bay, Sicily.

1988. Tugboats guide USS New Jersey into Port Jackson. New Jersey had arrived in Sydney to take part in the Australian Bicentennial.

February 1, 1989. USS Missouri having her hull scrapped and other work done while in drydock. Her outer four bladed screws are 18.25′ in diameter while her inner five blades screws are 17′ in diameter. Couple with the powerful 212,000 shaft horsepower turbines, the Iowa class could exceed 32 knots.

1990. USS Wisconsin steaming alongside the carrier USS Saratoga (CV-60) during their 1990-1991 deployment in the Mediterranean and Red Seas.

January 18, 1991. USS Wisconsin uses her 5″/58 secondary guns to pound targets ashore during the Gulf War. Wisconsin spent eight months in the Persian Gulf. During that time, she fired 319 16″ shells, 881 5″ shells, and 5,200 20mm rounds in addition to her 24 cruise missiles.

August 1992. The battleship New Jersey is tied up to the same pier at USS Hornet (CVS-12) at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard.

September 1993. The mothballed battleships USS Iowa (BB-61) and USS Wisconsin (BB-64) tied up together at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. I remembered seeing them there while we were driving in the Northeas.

October 30, 1995. A photo of the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard along with a wide assortment of warships. Among the battleships Iowa and Wisconsin can be seen at the right. I was on that bridge when I saw the ships and I almost wrecked,  I knew what they were and so wanted to stop...but couldn't.

June 22, 1998. Crowds gather as USS Missouri enters the channel leading to Pearl Harbor. She was being moved to Pearl Harbor to serve as a museum ship. The location that saw the entrance of the United States into World War II would now host the vessel that saw its end.

November 11, 1999. The battleship USS New Jersey is towed up the Delaware river towards the Philadelphia Shipyard. She would go on to be restored and converted into a floating museum.

December 12, 2000. USS Wisconsin located at her new home in Norfolk, Virginia.

January 31, 2003. The battleship Missouri watches over the USS Arizona. In the background, nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) enters Pearl Harbor.

April 16, 2004. In celebration of the ship’s 60th anniversary of her commissioning, sailors from the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71)  man the rails aboard USS Wisconsin.

January 7, 2010. Workers work early in the morning to prepare USS Missouri for her undocking later that day. Missouri had undergone an 18 million dollar overhaul aimed at preserving her so that future generations could continue to visit her.

May 25, 2015. The crew renders honors aboard the USNS Mercy (T-AH-19) as they pass the battleships Arizona and Missouri.

August 30, 2016. Iowa fires her secondary guns in salute to the assault carrier USS America (LHA-6) as she arrives at Los Angeles Harbor.  Though it might not look like it, at full load the Iowa (58,000 tons) displaced roughly 13,000 more tons than USS America (44,971 tons).From harbingers of war to the setting for peace. From World War II to the Gulf War. From instruments of destruction to tools of education. The Iowa class battleships have seen plenty of change throughout the years. Thanks to the dedicated people who maintain them today, we will ensure that they remain around for another 78 years.