"RN was lousy shots in the great war." The battlecruisers were lousy shots, but they did most of the fighting at sea. The Grand Fleet's accuracy was far superior to that of the BCF under Beatty. I am NOT a Beatty fan. Also, those raining hate on the RN 15" should remember that the record for longest hit was set by the Warspite with those very same 15" guns. Furthermore, survivors from the Dunkuerque and Bretagne might disagree about the effectiveness. Also, the Hood never got off any full salvos, had her fire control top (and her highest rangefinder) knocked out on the 1st or 2nd salvo, and was on the wrong target (PE) and had to change back to Bismarck which cost her a some of her precious few salvos at PE, then having to re-range and start over on the Bis. Sailors from both ships (PE and Bis) regarded the Hood's shooting as good. So, I think that any criticism of the 15"/42 is mere AXIS propaganda! Mike D
Agreed. The 15/42 was a magnificent gun. Once they got the shells to match. I think its predecessor the 13.5 was also a good gun.
I know the guy who had the lathe for the 16" gun barrels they had burried in the desert and had to dig up and get re-finished, he had bought the lathe as surplus many moons ago, was shocked when he got a call that they needed the lathe or him to do the barrels for the rebuild, was interesting to see, those things are HUGE and LONG... Bryan
The 15"42 was a good gun it did achive the longest recorded hit on a moving target, yes there were guns that hit harder or penatraited armor better but it may have been the best alround gun of either war. The guns mounted on Vanguard were completely moderized before they were installed. Vanguard did not last long post war because of reduction in the Royal Navy not due to some problem with the ship. I spoke with two gentlemen who served on her and they said she was one of the most stable ships they had ever been on. That would make a very good accurate gun platform.
hes it was sittingin a warehouse with nothing else near it but it went almost the whole length of the one wall, the face plate is almost 8' in diameter and looks so tiny compared to the rest of the machine, but they brought the barrels in all under tarps on huge extra length flat beds and brought the trucks right into the warehouse where they were craned onto the lathe then set down till all were done and the trucks loaded up again and shipped out, they even came with a guard contingent that brought in local guards to work with them while they stayed there till the jobs were done and they had their own quality guys checking each one and marking it before loading it on the truck again. Needless to say when he bought the lathe there were only guys looking to break it up for scrap and he bought it and thought he might use it for something some day, guess it was a good buy because he got himself a nice sports car and paid off his house after that. I thought it was just a neet instance and something you definitely do not hear about too often, his shop is in Cambridge Ontario. []
I know this is an old thread but I had to say something about the Iowa. My company (Bay Ship & Yacht)has worked on her from time to time.She is in bad shape. When she was in Philly no work was done on her. Her decks in a lot of spots is rotting away. Her paint is blistering away. The city of San Francisco does not want her after the Navy brought the Iowa to the Bay area. There is talk of possibly putting her in Valiejo but the channel needs to be dredged. Thank you the city of San Francisco. You pride yourself as the city who knows how. You bungle everything.
Forgot to mention B turret is still not working from that explosion. It was painfully hand cranked around to the configuration of the other turrets. I do not think that time and money would be spent on her and only the Whiskey would ever in my opinion ever come back.
I just discovered this thread and will add my 2 cents about British 15' guns and shooting. Sources other than British rate their 15" guns as among the best heavy naval guns ever made. There was a great improvement in gun direction between WWI and WWII. Even so, at Jutland the Fifth Battle Squadron (composed of 4 of the 5 QEs) did very well in hitting the German BC squadron at long range and inflicted significant damage. The Germans were impressed by the accuracy of the QE's 15" gunfire. Renown had some spectacularly accurate hits (during a full gale) on Scharnhorst and Gniesenau at the time of the German invasion of Norway. She drove off both of them though on paper they should have been able to defeat her. Warspite scored a maximum range hit on an Italian battleship with its opening salvos (1940?) causing the admiral onboard to turn tail and run despite having a superior force. (This was the action Chris E. mentioned earlier.) Hood was firing at Prinz Eugen, not Bismarck. Though she failed to hit the cruiser there were some near misses according to accounts of the battle from the German side, and she was only firing 4 gun salvos vs her normal 8. As Chris pointed out the main director control was knocked out by Bismarck's second salvo, which did not help accuracy. There was nothing wrong with the guns or turrets on Vanguard. I have an extensive collection of reference books and all state the stored WWI turrets were completely refurbished and improved. The turrets got much heavier armour, increased elevation and two got modern local gun directors. In addition the main gun directors were new and the best available at the time. The turret machinery was overhauled before installation and was in good condition. The 15" guns from the light BCs had not been in storage. They were part of the pool used in many different ships with 15" guns and were regularly refurbished. The 15" guns in Vanguard came from the general pool, were freshly relined and in excellent condition. Most people know little about how battleship guns are routinely removed and relined due to wear, or that there is generally a reserve stock of guns available for replacement. R. Burt's 'Big Gun Monitors' contains a chapter on guns and gives a detailed account of that process. The chapter includes a history of various 15" guns detailing which ships they were installed in between relinings. Some of the 15" monitor guns had been in the Courageous or Renown Class BCs, and others had been in QE and R Class battleships. They were always rotating between the armoury and different ships as needed. Vanguard did not have stability problems and was far more seaworthy than the Iowa Class, proven when the two types operated together in a North Atalntic gale post-WWII. Vanguard was scrapped due to economic considerations and the perception that battleships were obsolete, not because the hull couldn't handle more equipment. Must get off my butt and complete my HMS Vanguard build! Bob
Roma was good on paper because they ran speed trials before installing turrets. Richelieu would have torn them up. It would have been very interesting to see the Richelieu up against the Bismark. She was built specifically to chase the Bismark down. She could do 32 knots at flank speed and was to be escorted by the Le Hardi destroyers for scouting that were documented to have sustained 39 knots for 24 hours straight.
Getting back to the comments about Whiskey. Recently tread upon her deck. Because the Navy could want her back, visitors are not allowed to venture inside of the ship! Unlike the 'North Carolina', where a person can spend over two hours investigating the ship.
Dan, the B turret on Iowa is half repaired, and the rest of the items needed are stored in the turret. She was found to be in overall better shape than the New Jersey. For the outward appearance, it was explained by Dick Landgraff at one point (one of the guys that oversaw the re-activations in the 80's) that the outward appearance is many times quite deceiving when ships are mothballed. Of course the Navy has been anxious to get rid of the BB's for years, but still haven't produced the replacement land attack ships. If they are in bad shape, the Navy intentionally neglected them. After Congress having gotten involved with keeping the BB's around, I've noticed the US Navy now almost immediately scrapping everything very quickly before anyone notices. If many ships are sunk in a conflict, that will come back around to bite us as some good modern ships (like Spruance's which are the same hulls as Tico's, and were designed with room for major modernisation) have gotten scrapped. For reactivation purposes, I might get flamed, but what the hey. I've been around on the debate for 15 years or more, and I've heard all the arguments on both sides by smarter experts than I. Some a lot smarter. Both sides make very, very good points, but what I keep noticing, is that we keep having to use a 21st century Navy to combat mid-20th century enemies. Things like Somalia, the Cole incident, the Princeton incident, the Stark incident and similar... From that perspective, a WWII Battleship is a very VISIBLE and cheap symbol of power to warlord type thugs. Not to mention it can actually take a few hits and stay on station until relieved. What the opponents of re-activation point to is fighting another high tech power, but so far over the last 60 years, much could be resolved cheaply, safely, and reliably by 16" shells, or the threat of 16" shells. Keep mind that the Somalian pirate problem could actually be resolved with just WWII Jeep carriers with Corsairs to protect several convoy's and a nice armored Battleship to follow pirates to their homeports and eliminate their resupply, or make it most uncomfortable. (they're oddly still the fastest large ships on the NVR as the speeds have been continually dropping since the mid-60's). Basically, I think we're just as lopsided ship-wise now, as we were prior to WWII. We've got some AWESOME ships in the Tico's and Burke's which both render most countries air force's obsolete, and of course the Nimitz carriers, but nothing reasonably cheap to deal with medium/antique threats that keep appearing.
