Challenge: battleship world

[RamscoopRaider]

I was thinking more of late 1945/1946 when the USA burned all the PT boats since the PT boats were no longer combat effective. Radar controlled naval fire could sink them before they were in range to launch torpedo's. If this level of radar control exists in sat 1935, the the battleships perform much better in WW2

Well there was no real need for PT boats in that time and the US was getting rid of a lot of ships not just them, fire control was better in 45/46 but could still hit major warships in 41/42

If this existed in 35 then by 40 you would have decent radar directed ack-ack and make it much harder to attack ships, especially if planes do not improve as much

 

[CalBear]

I think Pearl Harbor, followed by Coral Sea and Midway, are what really pushed the carrier to the forefront. Prevent the first, and that could go a long way.

On another note, I don't think BB (of BBG) are all that obsolete. Swords and other melee weapons are seldom used not because they aren't deadly, the problem is getting into range. In trenches or room-to-room fighting, they are very deadly (but can still be countered with a sawed-off shotgun. To have a Battleship World, you need a means to allow the battleships (assuming you don't have BBGs, in that case, just launch missiles) to use their guns. If Yamato had descent air cover, it might have made it to Okinawa and shown just how effective 453 (is that the right number?) millimeter guns are against smaller ships.

All the air cover in Christendom wouldn't have gotten the Yamato to the Beaches. She was sunk by carrier aircraft because the surface force commander couldn't be bothered to go blow the pogies out of her. As a back-up to the carrier planes Spruance sent SIX battleships (3 Iowas & 3 South Dakotas), seven cruisers (including both of the CB) and 21 destroyers to ensure she didn't make it to the beaches.

Edit: BTW, when the Yamato had a bunch of soft skinned ships under her gun at Leyte she didn't exactly blow anyone's skirts up.

 

[Winston Smith]

All the air cover in Christendom wouldn't have gotten the Yamato to the Beaches. She was sunk by carrier aircraft because the surface force commander couldn't be bothered to go blow the pogies out of her. As a back-up to the carrier planes Spruance sent SIX battleships (3 Iowas & 3 South Dakotas), seven cruisers (including both of the CB) and 21 destroyers to ensure she didn't make it to the beaches.

Edit: BTW, when the Yamato had a bunch of soft skinned ships under her gun at Leyte she didn't exactly blow anyone's skirts up.

I've got to agree with Calbear on this issue. Their was so many things running against the Yamato that day.

 

[The Kiat]

Edit: BTW, when the Yamato had a bunch of soft skinned ships under her gun at Leyte she didn't exactly blow anyone's skirts up.

I thought that had to do with making a wide swing away from the battle to avoid torpedoes.

 

[dgharis]

Even if battleships do develop as proposed here, with radar directed gunfire and AA missiles (and let's throw in CIWS as well, why not?) that will be the peak of their development; aircraft and submarine development will catch up eventually and the battleship's day will pass.

The reason for this is quite simple; the battleship's reach is limited to the range of its guns (about 45 km maximum) while the carrier's reach is the range of its aircraft (about 300 km for WW II US aircraft); the carrier can hit the battleship multiple times before the battleship can ever get close enough to use its guns, and given that the carrier is as fast as or faster than the battleship it can simply match the battleship's movements to keep the battleship from closing.

As for submarines, the battleship does not mount any ASW because it relies on escorts to fend the subs off, and giving the battleship ASW detracts from its primary purpose of fighting other suface warships. Once torpedoes are sufficiently developed submarines will be able to fire them from outside the protective envelope of the escorts and have them home in on the battleship. (IOTL such homing torpedoes were developed by both the Germans and the US by the end of WW II). To a submarine a battleship is nothing but a large expensive target.

 

[Deleted member 9338]

As symbols of a nation's power the battleships are the natural and rightful home of the ICBM silo.

I built that model 30+ years ago in an ALT 1950s ish world. It was a fun model to kit bash.

 

[informationfan]

Those battleships were already on order and Pearl Harbor was an ambush against a moored fleet with unmanned guns, essentially the best possible case

Remember at this point there had been no open sea pure carrier vs battleship battles and you had the example of the Glorious (I believe) sank by German Pocket Battleships

Lookupshootup, getting rid of WWI like I plan would get rid of WWII, this would slow aircraft development and with some butterflies speeding up SAM development, Germany had prototypes by 1944, you could make Battleships virtually impossible to kill with air attacks, or have that be the dominant theory

Nope, scharnhorst and geneisenau had been battlecruisers, not heavy cruisers... but otherwise you are right
the brits showed both - tarento showed that carriers are very usefull, but the loss of two carriers (maybe 3 if the torpedos work on the Ark Royal) by subs/battleships could give an other impression...

if battles show that battleships survive but carriers go down, if attacked by airplanes (illustrious in the med), you could give the battleships some more days...

but a plot that work need earlier carriers, that work BAD... ln ww2 it is to late...

 

[Deleted member 9338]

Battleship serve one purpose very well, showing a country's flag. Even today they look impressive against a carrier.

The range of a battleship's gun is able to project power against most targets. Remember, most people do like to live near the coast.

As for a POD make it the battle of Coral Sea. Even if the aircraft do sink surface warships, the heavy cruisers on the Japanese side could catch the American carries and sink one of them.

It will reinforce the battleship admirals' position.

 

[NothingNow]

I was thinking more of late 1945/1946 when the USA burned all the PT boats since the PT boats were no longer combat effective. Radar controlled naval fire could sink them before they were in range to launch torpedo's.

Yeah, you aren't going to do that. A Battleship's main guns are not defensive weaponry. The AA and auxiliary armament, alongside the Battleships escorts are supposed to deal with that. Still, to do this right, well, you really can't, unless you play with the laws of physics, or mess with metallurgy enough to keep the price of Aluminum higher than gold.

Seriously, between submarines, Aircraft and the development of the shaped charge, the days of the battleship were numbered. The Astronomic cost of the things didn't help things either. There's a good reason that before WWI broke out the USN only built two at a time, and even in the War didn't up the rate of production much.

It's not just Carrier aircraft either, given how later seaplanes developed. Something like the Martin P6M and a few Torpedoes would easily be able to sink a Battleship.

Of course, given modern defensive and gunnery systems, a Battleship or Battlecruiser built now would be a massive threat, and it wouldn't be a paper tiger.
Of course, The Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Georgia all do the same thing over longer ranges in a more survivable package. Stealth and range mean everything on the modern battlefield.

 

[Gridley]

I really think your best show is by treaty - have the Washington naval treaty ban carriers (OK, allow each signatory one experimental ship - Hosho and Langley aren't going to be sinking any BB's).

The treaties (Washington and London) influenced shipbuilding through the end of WWII - even the post-treaty designs often owed basic assumptions to treaty ones (and non-treaty designs were not without their own problems; look at the Alaska-class).

So, no large carriers can be laid down until 1936, and none can start conversion. No one is just going to jump into mass production; they'll build a couple of test ships and conversions which will be commissioned ~1938. These will be akin to USS Ranger or Junyo; nothing to cheer about. Naval aircraft development will probably also be somewhat delayed - imagine if everyone is still flying biplanes when they enter the war.

No mature carrier arm in anyone's navy (only three navies affected - USN, RN, IJN) means no Taranto, no Pearl Harbor, easily no vital last-minute damage to the Bismarck, no Coral Sea... carriers will certainly be recognized as extremely valuable for scouting, raiding, and ASW work but they'll be the light tanks of naval warfare.

Bottom line, all three navies that built fleet carriers went through a lot of trial and error to get there, and two of them (IJN and USN) got very lucky with their treaty-allowed BC to CV conversions. Absent that experience in the early 1930s, the WWII ships will be a collection of one- and two- off experimental types with all the problems those bring, flying relatively immature designs and with no trained and blooded pilots corps. Small, hesitant groups are NOT a threat to BBs on the move. Take a look at how many aircraft and hits it took to do in Yamato or Musashi - now imagine trying to sink them with just one or two experimental decks available instead of a dozen mass-produced ones.

 

[AdA]

Kirov?

Kirov and her sisters are usually listed as Battlecruisers. With a little more armour they could be rerated as Battleships. The POD would have to create a situtation in wich a Kirov centered Surface Action group engages a USN Carrier battle Group and manages to sink the Carrier with it´s SSN19 missiles while using it's AA weapons to shot down all incoming attacks. This would lead to the conclusion that the Supersonic AShM had rendered the Carrier obsolete and that modern defences had rendered the subsonic AShM obsolete. Since Russian style large Supersonic missiles require large ships or large non carrier compatible aircraft (Tu22M, etc) the world navies would adopt the missile armed BB as the new capital ship.
If this post is looking only for Gun Armed BB, you have to get a more unlikely situation in witch longrange radar controled AA Guns manage to shoot down all attacking Aircraft while the BB get´s within gun range of the carrier. It would be fun to do that with Jean Bart and Vanguard VS a US Task Force in the Suez crisis.

 

[AdA]

Bottom line, all three navies that built fleet carriers went through a lot of trial and error to get there, and two of them (IJN and USN) got very lucky with their treaty-allowed BC to CV conversions. Absent that experience in the early 1930s, the WWII ships will be a collection of one- and two- off experimental types with all the problems those bring, flying relatively immature designs and with no trained and blooded pilots corps. Small, hesitant groups are NOT a threat to BBs on the move. Take a look at how many aircraft and hits it took to do in Yamato or Musashi - now imagine trying to sink them with just one or two experimental decks available instead of a dozen mass-produced ones.[/QUOTE]

Three. The Courageous/Furious/Glorius were succefull conversions. Two of them got unlucky in action, thats all. But they were fast ships with a decent Airgroup for their size and the model for the Akagi/Kaga without the silly barbette guns the Japanese retained on Kaga...

 

[Gridley]

Three. The Courageous/Furious/Glorius were succefull conversions. Two of them got unlucky in action, thats all. But they were fast ships with a decent Airgroup for their size and the model for the Akagi/Kaga without the silly barbette guns the Japanese retained on Kaga...

I was considering them as fairly successful conversions, rather than the true fleet carriers the USN and IJN got. USS Saratoga served with the Fast Carrier Force right up to the end of the war.

Still, you make a good point. All THREE of the carrier navies of WWII got their start on that path at the Washington conference. Change the conference, change the war.

 

[CalBear]

The problem is, of course, is that the entire reason for the Treaty was to stop the battleship arms race. It was also meant to prevent the various countries from bankrupting themselves. The only real concern about carriers, as the limitations indicate (8" guns, etc.), was that that would be used to sneak through more BB/BC in by any other name or vastly increase the number of cruisers in service.

I really think your best show is by treaty - have the Washington naval treaty ban carriers (OK, allow each signatory one experimental ship - Hosho and Langley aren't going to be sinking any BB's).

The treaties (Washington and London) influenced shipbuilding through the end of WWII - even the post-treaty designs often owed basic assumptions to treaty ones (and non-treaty designs were not without their own problems; look at the Alaska-class).

So, no large carriers can be laid down until 1936, and none can start conversion. No one is just going to jump into mass production; they'll build a couple of test ships and conversions which will be commissioned ~1938. These will be akin to USS Ranger or Junyo; nothing to cheer about. Naval aircraft development will probably also be somewhat delayed - imagine if everyone is still flying biplanes when they enter the war.

No mature carrier arm in anyone's navy (only three navies affected - USN, RN, IJN) means no Taranto, no Pearl Harbor, easily no vital last-minute damage to the Bismarck, no Coral Sea... carriers will certainly be recognized as extremely valuable for scouting, raiding, and ASW work but they'll be the light tanks of naval warfare.

Bottom line, all three navies that built fleet carriers went through a lot of trial and error to get there, and two of them (IJN and USN) got very lucky with their treaty-allowed BC to CV conversions. Absent that experience in the early 1930s, the WWII ships will be a collection of one- and two- off experimental types with all the problems those bring, flying relatively immature designs and with no trained and blooded pilots corps. Small, hesitant groups are NOT a threat to BBs on the move. Take a look at how many aircraft and hits it took to do in Yamato or Musashi - now imagine trying to sink them with just one or two experimental decks available instead of a dozen mass-produced ones.

 

[Gridley]

The problem is, of course, is that the entire reason for the Treaty was to stop the battleship arms race. It was also meant to prevent the various countries from bankrupting themselves. The only real concern about carriers, as the limitations indicate (8" guns, etc.), was that that would be used to sneak through more BB/BC in by any other name or vastly increase the number of cruisers in service.

I'd say it was more to stop the naval arms race, of which battleships were certainly seen as the key element. From there, it is a small step to 'and we all agree not to waste our money on carriers, too'. The various treaties also wound up covering cruisers, destroyers, etc. as well as regulating allowed tonnage of carriers, so we're not talking about changing the scope of the treaties. We're just making them a bit more draconian.

I think it would be safe to say that a 12-year 'carrier holiday' would put WWII carriers ~6 years behind OTL at the outbreak of war. That's enough, IMO, to cripple their effectiveness as fleet striking units.

 

[BlondieBC]

I'd say it was more to stop the naval arms race, of which battleships were certainly seen as the key element. From there, it is a small step to 'and we all agree not to waste our money on carriers, too'. The various treaties also wound up covering cruisers, destroyers, etc. as well as regulating allowed tonnage of carriers, so we're not talking about changing the scope of the treaties. We're just making them a bit more draconian.

I think it would be safe to say that a 12-year 'carrier holiday' would put WWII carriers ~6 years behind OTL at the outbreak of war. That's enough, IMO, to cripple their effectiveness as fleet striking units.

Agreed with the above.

To me, a provision banning the conversion of BC to Carriers and allow 4-6 BC per nation seems quite plausible. BC arguably had a role as command ships for cruiser task forces and as ships to hunt down commerce raiders. And it might well be cheaper to pay the operation costs of a BC than to pay the conversions costs to a carrier and pay the operating costs of a carrier. The idea could be sold as a money saver.

The 'carrier holiday' provision seems quite reasonable too. A carrier holiday makes the carrier a backwater carrier for naval officers. The best and the brightest will be attracted to the main battle fleet of Battleships.

Does anyone know who push for the carrier conversion clauses in the Naval treaties?

 

[CalBear]

I'd say it was more to stop the naval arms race, of which battleships were certainly seen as the key element. From there, it is a small step to 'and we all agree not to waste our money on carriers, too'. The various treaties also wound up covering cruisers, destroyers, etc. as well as regulating allowed tonnage of carriers, so we're not talking about changing the scope of the treaties. We're just making them a bit more draconian.

I think it would be safe to say that a 12-year 'carrier holiday' would put WWII carriers ~6 years behind OTL at the outbreak of war. That's enough, IMO, to cripple their effectiveness as fleet striking units.

A holiday might slow the inevitable, but that would be about the limits. What really made carriers the mass killers that they became was the evolution in aircraft. An airgroup comprised of Martin T4M, Grumman F2B, and Martin BM or of Aichi D1A, Mitsubishi B2M, and Nakajima A2N was not anywhere near the threat of the aircraft of 1941 or in the case of the USN 1944-45. Once you could fly TBF or B6N off a carrier deck, along with F6F or A6M and SBD or D4A, the carrier as the main strike force of any fleet was a given.

The only way to keep carriers from driving the BB from the seas is to prevent the introduction of 1,000 HP aircraft engines.

The same general case can be made for submarines, although the sub would remain a defensive/raider threat until a reasonable cruise/ballistic missile was developed.

 

[NothingNow]

The only way to keep carriers from driving the BB from the seas is to prevent the introduction of 1,000 HP aircraft engines.

Agreed, although a fast seaplane torpedo bomber (Like an S.M. 79 or Do 17 on Floats) might be a valid threat as well, even if it'd be more troublesome to deploy operationally than a carrier-based torpedo bomber.

The same general case can be made for submarines, although the sub would remain a defensive/raider threat until a reasonable cruise/ballistic missile was developed.

Or a real AIP system was developed, and Torpedoes improve, then you'd get a really viable Fleet Hunter. Of course, they're still a shitty capital ship at that point, but still, a really viable threat.

 

[David S Poepoe]

You mean like the Maine?

The USS Maine would be one warship, the Mutsu, HMS Vanguard, HMS Glatton, the French battleship Iena, just to name a few.

 

[hairysamarian]

POD where there are no aircraft carriers, and engagements are fought by battleship

To imagine that, you pretty much have to imagine a reason for airplanes not to exist. Look at the original timeline:

In December 1903, the world's first heavier than air plane flies.
By 1910, the cruiser Birmingham was already capable of launching aircraft.
By 1914, the Japanese were conducting air raids from a ship named Wakamiya.
WW1 certainly demonstrated how quickly the airplane had become militarized.
And by 1918 HMS Argus was launching and landing aircraft, qualifying it as the first true aircraft carrier.

That's less than 15 years from "no aircraft exist" to "legitimate weapon." I think that demonstrates how obvious the utility of carriers must have been, if not to all planners then at least to enough of them. So any timeline that precludes aircraft carriers, it seems, must simply preclude aircraft altogether.