I’ve written quite a bit on the history of battleship design, but I haven’t spent much time on the use of the early battleships. This is a gap I intend to close, by looking at the (surprisingly few) clashes of ironclad and pre-dreadnought battleships.
When we left Pearl Harbor, it was the evening of December 7th, and most of Battle Force was on the bottom of the harbor. But what happened to the ships afterwards? We’ll go through the ships in the order which they returned to service (if they did) and then look more broadly at the use of the survivors during the war.
Iowa's refit at Hunter's Point after her first tour in the Pacific ran from January until mid-March of 1945. Besides the repairs to Shaft 3, she received an enclosed bridge (the original bridge had consisted of an open walkway wrapped around the front of the conning tower), updated radar for the Mk 37 directors, and new airplanes, SC Seahawks replacing OS2U Kingfishers.
The end of March was spent operating out of San Pedro Harbor, her future home, working up before going back to the front lines. She relieved New Jersey, due for a refit of her own, on April 20th, and was off Okinawa in support of operations there five days later. En route, the crew learned of the death of President Roosevelt, who they had carried across the Atlantic a year and a half previously.
Here's my list of naval-related books, in case anyone wants to do more reading on the subjects under discussion here, or if you're looking for presents for someone of a naval inclination. Read more...
On the morning of December 7th, 1941 Pearl Harbor held eight battleships: Nevada, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Tennessee, California, West Virginia and Maryland. All of them were of First World War vintage, representatives of what was known as the Standard Type. These were ships commissioned between 1914 and 1923, all of broadly the same size, and the first ships designed for long-range combat using an all-or-nothing armor scheme. All had four turrets, and all but West Virginia and Maryland mounted 14” guns.1
All of the ships except the drydocked Pennsylvania were moored along Ford Island in the famous ‘battleship row’. I’m going to focus on the stories of the individual ships during the attack, moving north to south. The attack began at 0748 on Sunday, December 7th, and a total of 353 Japanese aircraft were involved, in two waves.
After a hectic first month of combat, Iowa’s war slowed down. The second half of March and April were spent supporting the carrier groups, which at this point in the war were not facing a serious air threat. May 1st saw Iowa returning to action with the bombardment of Ponape Atoll, accompanied not only by New Jersey but also by Massachusetts, North Carolina, Alabama, and South Dakota. The Japanese were smart enough to keep their heads down this time, despite the extensive damage that was done to their infrastructure, primarily the island's three runways. After 70 minutes, the bombardment was terminated for lack of suitable targets.
Although overshadowed in the public eye by the carriers, battleships played an important part in America's efforts during WWII. The battleships the US operated during WW2 fall very nicely into two categories: the 15 slow battleships built before the naval treaties, some dating back as far as 1910, and the 10 fast battleships, built under the naval treaties from 1937 onward.
I've discussed the matter of battleship fire control at some length, but I focused on the various mechanisms necessary to compensate for the difficulty of shooting at moving targets at sea. What I didn't cover in any detail is the equally intricate process of making sure that the shell lands where you want it to 20 miles away.
Let's start with the forces on the projectile. The most important is gravity. Obviously, gravity pulls the projectile down, and makes it curve. In a vacuum, it would form a perfect parabola, returning at the same angle it departed at, and falling at the muzzle velocity. Read more...
For the past few weeks, I've been generating topic ideas a lot faster than I can write them up, so I thought I'd consult you guys for thoughts on how to prioritize the list. I'm not going to make any promises that I'll follow any suggestions made, but they'll definitely go into my decisions on which one to pursue.
Here's some of the topics on my current list:
Also, feel free to suggest things not on this list. It skews towards older stuff, and I expect to focus my energy there for the near future. I'm definitely committed to the Iowa series, and also to one on Russian battleships.
Last time, I talked about the origins of naval fire control, and the basic problems that fire control systems have to solve. The fire control systems on Iowa are recognizable as descendants of the early systems, solving the same problems, but in a much more integrated and sophisticated way.
Recent Comments