I was the show "Top Ten warships" on the military channel. THe top ten ships (according to them) are in order: 10. Hood Class 9. Dueschland class 8. Essax class aircraft carrier 7. Bismark Class 6. South Carolina class 5. Flecher class 4. Ticonderga class 3. Queen Elizibeth class 2. Nitmitz Class aircraft carrier 1 Iowa Class When was the Iowa class dicomissioned. The show said the they fought in Desert storm.
I also heard they were used there. I think they had some tomahawk launchers added to them. That and it always good to have 14" 2000lb+ shells raining down from the heavens. [8D]
Yup, iowa scratches the battleship itch over and over. 2 of them are still able to be recalled (paperwork-wise) if needed... I think NJ & WI?
I know for a fact the WI is in recallable status... it's at the Nauticus Museum in Norfolk, and you can only tour the topside areas, as the inside is sealed and awaiting a call to arms...
It is the Iowa and the WI that are museum ships that have the stipulation that they can not be altered in any way that would prevent either ship from being reactivated and deployed almost instantly.
LOL I noticed that on my second time thru. 14" were a couple or three generations before the 16" (battleship-wise).
I agree...Here's my list. And It's not biased. At all. Sticking to Battleships/Battlecruisers of course. 10. IJN Kongo-class 9. HMS Dreadnought 8. HMS Queen Elizabeth-class 7. SMS Derfflinger-class 6. FS Richeleiu 5. RM Roma-class 4. KM Bismarck-class 3. HMS Vanguard 2. USS Iowa-class 1. IJN Yamato-class
I don't think the Vanguard should be in the top 10 at all. It used recycled 15 inch, 40 cal guns taken off the WW1 battlecruisers that were converted to carriers. They were wire wound, so after a few shots they would go off target due to barrel sag, when they heated up. The turrets and barrels were 20+ years old when they got mounted on the Vanguard, they were junk, the British were just trying to save a few pounds. And I heard last friday that the Navy has offered the last 2 Iowa's as museum ships to Virginia, and California. They no longer want to pay for the upkeep to keep them ready.
You need to check your information. There was nothing wrong with the 15" guns on Vanguard. The mounts had some operational issues due to being designed with powder room above the shell room. But they were able to deal with that. While they were from the WWI battle cruisers, they had been updated with new armor, and increased evelation. The british 15" gun has the reputaton of being the most reliable and accurate heavy navel gun used in WWII(see Garzke and Dulin). So while they may have been constructed by wire winding, it clearly did not impair their accuracy or reliabilty. The Brits used the old 15" to reduce the construction time. Guns require a long time to build, and they were on hand. The hull of Vanguard did have some issues as regard to its abilty to carry increased weights. Which is why it did not last long post war.
Nothing but Allied propaganda!!!! We all know how well the Hoods 15 inchers did, when she missed the bigger target the Bismarck. And payed the price. Also when the QE2 in ww1 could not hit the Turkish Pre-Dreds after firing 280+ rounds, yet one of them hit the QE2 with 3, 11" shells on the second salvo, forcing the QE2 to withdraw out of range. Yep those are great guns, what side do you think wrote the history books.
Of course the Turks did have spotters in the hills with the QE firing blind...iirc. Been a while since I read up on the Gallipoli campaign.
I've actually been reading a very well done book on WW1 and the naval campaigns called Castles of Steel. It's very well written, good narrative and pretty neutral when it comes to AARs and the such. One thing I did not know was that the Royal Navy was issued some very poorly designed ammunition, especially AP rounds. They apparently suffered from poor ignition as well as being prone to tumbling (which certainly didn't do anything for long range and very long range accuracy). By 1918 the problems were corrected, but of course by then it really didn't matter. There was also a problem with the 12"/50 mounted on the Hercules/Collosus class and I believe the New Zealand. It has very poor dispersion and wore barrels much more quickly than the older 12" rifles. The 15" rifle was developed quickly, and it was not without faults (mainly in the barrels) but it was a very good weapon for its day, although initially it lacked elevation to push the range out to what it was really capable of. All in all, the biggest shortcoming of the Royal Navy's gunnery was in training and spotting. Practicing at 6000 yards max until Jutland hampered shooting at the more realistic 8500+ yards the fleets engaged at, although good fire control systems lessened this somewhat. Comparison of hits recorded by the two sides showed that the German Battlecruisers were the best shots on either side at almost 6% accuracy, but the rest of the ships on both sides were all in the 3-4% hit range. I forgot where I was going with that. Hmm...oops. lol.
Same applied to the Italians in WW2 as well, they thenselves reported bad shell scatter due to poor powder, and premature barrel wear on their 15 in guns.
The premature barrel wear was from the extremely high muzzel velocity of the barrels giving them ranges up to 46,000 yards. Unfortunatly excessive wear prematurely means more time dockside and less time fighting.
