Anybody find this amazing regarding battleships?

[SaltyNuts]

Reading up on Yamoto versus Iowa class battleships in WWII, and I read that Iowa class had a big advantage in radar - it could literally hit the Yamoto class BEFORE IT COULD EVEN SEE IT BECAUSE IT WAS STILL OVER THE HORIZON. Does anyone else find this amazing? I mean, sure, a battleship is a big target. But, the space between the firing battleship and the target battleship, not to mention reasonable space beyond and to the right and left of, the target battleship is many, many times as big. 1000s of times? 10,000s of times? Seems like hitting a small pebble in Lake Superior or something. Truly amazing.

 

[Ken g6]

Seems a little too incredible to me. Doesn't radar need line-of-sight to work?

 

[sdifox]

Stop treating comic books as history books

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Seems a little too incredible to me. Doesn't radar need line-of-sight to work?

No

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar

But WWII battleships didn't have it, that tech didn't exist yet. The gunnery was usually aimed by spotter planes. Many battleships had catapult launched seaplanes, they gave the gunners firing directions

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Seems a little too incredible to me. Doesn't radar need line-of-sight to work?

It did back then. Starting in the '50s, they developed OTH systems. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-horizon_radar

As far as radar-directed gunnery, the USN and RN were substantially ahead of other navies before and during the war. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_gun_fire-control_system

In contrast to US radar aided system, the Japanese relied on averaging optical rangefinders, lacked gyros to sense the horizon, and required manual handling of follow-ups on the Sokutekiban, Shagekiban, Hoiban as well as guns themselves. This could have played a role in Center Force’s battleships' dismal performance in the Battle off Samar in October 1944.

Also, a battleship was about 900 feet (300 yards) long. The longest range naval artillery hit ever recorded was something like 27,000 yards. (A bit over 15 miles, and definitely not a 1000x difference as OP implies.)

15 miles is over the horizon if you're not too far up, but naval ships put their lookouts as far as possible up in the air.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horizon

Since the USS Iowa is 100 feet across, and is taller than it is wide, I'd assume 15 miles isn't technically OTH for the fire control radar, even if somebody on the deck or the bridge wouldn't be able to see that far.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

And as a follow-up, almost no naval engagements took place OTH. By the time naval guns got big enough to shoot targets that far away aircraft carriers had taken over as the principle attack weapons. The most famous battleship v battleship battle of WW2 was Bismarck v Hood and that took place in visual range. The Yamato and Musashi never fought other battleships, they both got sunk by carrier planes.

 

[MrSquished]

I was obsessed with navy ships as a kids and had numerous books on them. Especially battleships and carriers.

I always thought it was a wonder they could accurately hit targets with those guns miles away. I wonder what their accuracy percentage was?

 

[GagHalfrunt]

I was obsessed with navy ships as a kids and had numerous books on them. Especially battleships and carriers.

I always thought it was a wonder they could accurately hit targets with those guns miles away. I wonder what their accuracy percentage was?

They couldn't "accurately hit targets" at extreme ranges. Even in the shorter 5-10 mile typical engagements accuracy was very very low. They just fired a buttload of shells and eventually dialed it in so that they were in the ballpark. At longer range it was essentially spray and pray, just aim in the right direction and hope for the golden BB.

 

[NoTine42]

The 'ole battleships and their 16" guns did get put to good use in Opeation Desert Storm.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/battleships-pulled-off-the-biggest-ruse-of-operation-de-1754104974

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I was obsessed with navy ships as a kids and had numerous books on them. Especially battleships and carriers.

I always thought it was a wonder they could accurately hit targets with those guns miles away. I wonder what their accuracy percentage was?

http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_BB-Gunnery_p2.htm

In 1930-31, a typical year, the battleships fired Night Battle Practice B, for broadside guns. The practice - clearly anticipating Savo - was deliberately designed to determine what ammunition, if any, should be preloaded in the secondary battery in order to meet an unexpected night attack. The atmosphere was very clear, and the visibility was excellent. The mean range to target was about 5,000 yards, slightly lower than average.50 It was expected that ships might get their first effective shots off within 30 seconds, but no ship attained this standard. Because of this failure - 44 seconds being the average time to first effective salvo - further practices were scheduled to determine whether or not it might be better to turn on searchlights while the first salvos of starshells were still in flight. The average salvo interval was about 10 seconds, but performance among the various ships in the battle line varied markedly; Colorado's six-gun average interval of 5.9 seconds was lowest, while tardy Tennessee took almost twice that long. Everybody got some shots on target, although the hit percentage was rather unpredictable, ranging from Texas' 6.6% to California's 40.5%.

It was largely a numbers game - aim as carefully as you can while getting as many shells off as possible.

 

[GagHalfrunt]

The 'ole battleships and their 16" guns did get put to good use in Opeation Desert Storm.

http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/battleships-pulled-off-the-biggest-ruse-of-operation-de-1754104974

And even that was the battleship being shoe-horned into a role where it wasn't needed. They could have positioned a few troop carriers off the coast and pounded the shore positions with planes instead of guns and it would have sent the same message. The battleship has been obsolete since the mid-1940s. Everything it's done since then, whether shore bombardment or missile platform could be done just as effectively by smaller, less expensive ships or by planes. The US military kept them around for an extra 60+ years just because they loved the big guns (insert penis metaphor here) and didn't want to retire them.

 

[Squisher]

LIES! The earth is flat.

 

[louis redfoot]

LIES! The earth is flat.

uhhh iono about that. what makes you say that? thanks

 

[WT]

uhhh iono about that. what makes you say that? thanks

Current events. Kyrie Irving, point guard for the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, admitted to being a flat earth proponent last week.

 

[louis redfoot]

Current events. Kyrie Irving, point guard for the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team, admitted to being a flat earth proponent last week.

fair point. i just don't like it though. thx

 

[BoomerD]

What the OP really means is...OMG! Lookit them big boats! They're made of STEEL, lots and lots of STEEL. We all know steel doesn't float...so how do they do it?

Is there a wooden frame under all that steel that allows them to float?

 

[Thump553]

The US still has battleships in operation? That's astonishing-not only are they hugely expensive to build and operate, but they were already outdated at the start of WW II,

But when we spend $13 billion on ONE aircraft carrier I guess you can hide a lot of waste as rounding errors in the federal military budget.

 

[SKORPI0]

It's a hit/miss during WWII without the use of spotter planes. Just like this game.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa-class_battleship

Electronics

An AN/SPS-49 antenna

Gunfire-control radars aboard USS Iowa
The earliest search radars installed were the SK air-search radar and SG surface-search radar during World War II. They were located on the mainmast and forward fire-control tower of the battleships, respectively. As the war drew to a close, the United States introduced the SK-2 air-search radar and SG surface-search radar; the Iowa class was updated to make use of these systems between 1945 and 1952. At the same time, the ships' radar systems were augmented with the installation of the SP height finder on the main mast. In 1952, AN/SPS-10 surface-search radar and AN/SPS-6 air-search radar replaced the SK and SG radar systems, respectively. Two years later the SP height finder was replaced by the AN/SPS-8 height finder, which was installed on the main mast of the battleships. During their brief period of activity under the 600-ship Navy program, the battleships' radar systems were again upgraded. The AN/SPS-6 air-search radar system was replaced with the AN/SPS-49 radar set (which also augmented the existing navigation capabilities on the battleships), and the AN/SPS-8 surface-search radar set was replaced by the AN/SPS-67 search radar.[55]

In addition to these search and navigational radars, the Iowa class were also outfitted with a variety of fire control systems for their gun systems, and later for their missile systems. Beginning with their commissioning, the battleships made use of a trio of Mk 38 gun fire control systems to direct the 16-inch guns and a quartet of Mk 37 gun fire control systems to direct the 5 in gun batteries. These systems were upgraded over time, but remained the cornerstones of the combat radar systems on the Iowa class during their careers.[85] The range estimation of these gunfire control systems provided a significant accuracy advantage over earlier ships with optical rangefinders; this was demonstrated off Truk Atoll on 16 February 1944 when Iowa engaged the Japanese destroyer Nowaki at a range of 35,700 yards (32.6 km) and straddled her, setting the record for the longest-ranged straddle in history.[86]

 

[dave_the_nerd]

And even that was the battleship being shoe-horned into a role where it wasn't needed. They could have positioned a few troop carriers off the coast and pounded the shore positions with planes instead of guns and it would have sent the same message. The battleship has been obsolete since the mid-1940s. Everything it's done since then, whether shore bombardment or missile platform could be done just as effectively by smaller, less expensive ships or by planes. The US military kept them around for an extra 60+ years just because they loved the big guns (insert penis metaphor here) and didn't want to retire them.

Congress and Reagan. They were retired after Vietnam, until Reagan started his buildup and they were dug out of mothballs. Retired again after GW1, but Congress kept demanding they be kept in ready-reserve, etc. It was only a few years ago that they got put away for good.

FWIW, putting a shell on something is a lot cheaper than flying a plane to drop a bomb. And faster, too. But you have to be within range, and frankly, the old supplies of ammunition and powder for the old guns was left over from WWII and was probably more dangerous to the ships themselves than to the enemy.

It's why one of the design requirements for the DD-X/DD-1000 was the ability to do shore bombardment. And why the USN has spent the last 20 years trying to bolt a working railgun to something that floats - they want to get rid of the BBs as bad as Congress wanted to keep 'em.

 

[Sonikku]

Reading up on Yamoto versus Iowa class battleships in WWII, and I read that Iowa class had a big advantage in radar - it could literally hit the Yamoto class BEFORE IT COULD EVEN SEE IT BECAUSE IT WAS STILL OVER THE HORIZON. Does anyone else find this amazing? I mean, sure, a battleship is a big target. But, the space between the firing battleship and the target battleship, not to mention reasonable space beyond and to the right and left of, the target battleship is many, many times as big. 1000s of times? 10,000s of times? Seems like hitting a small pebble in Lake Superior or something. Truly amazing.

Naturally the Yamoto had the advantage in weaponry. But had the captain given the order to active the wave motion gun, victory would have come at the cost of half the planet.

 

[lxskllr]

What the OP really means is...OMG! Lookit them big boats! They're made of STEEL, lots and lots of STEEL. We all know steel doesn't float...so how do they do it?

Is there a wooden frame under all that steel that allows them to float?

They fill them with helium; Well we did anyway. The Germans used hydrogen, and it had some unforeseen problems.

 

[Darwin333]

It's why one of the design requirements for the DD-X/DD-1000 was the ability to do shore bombardment. And why the USN has spent the last 20 years trying to bolt a working railgun to something that floats - they want to get rid of the BBs as bad as Congress wanted to keep 'em.

And they decided to go with some new rocket/shell hybrid of some sort and found out that it was going to cost something like $2B to supply a single ship with a full supply so they axed it. Of course the guns were designed to fire that specific round so now they don't have any long-range guns at the moment.

 

[Pulsar]

The US still has battleships in operation? That's astonishing-not only are they hugely expensive to build and operate, but they were already outdated at the start of WW II,

But when we spend $13 billion on ONE aircraft carrier I guess you can hide a lot of waste as rounding errors in the federal military budget.

You obviously never watched the movie battleship. That shows just how important they are to us.

 

[louis redfoot]

battleships and aircraft carriers are useful to bully the smaller players. but submarines are where it's at.

 

[Pulsar]

And they decided to go with some new rocket/shell hybrid of some sort and found out that it was going to cost something like $2B to supply a single ship with a full supply so they axed it. Of course the guns were designed to fire that specific round so now they don't have any long-range guns at the moment.

The round that you are talking about is GPS guided and can hit within a couple feet of accuracy out to 60 miles. Unfortunately when the order of Zumwalt destroyers was cut from 33 ships to 3, it hurt the cost of ammo pretty significantly. Plus Lockheed Martin said the round would cost $60k, and it cost $800,000 instead. THAT'S the point at which the Navy should have told them to fuck off. But of course Lockheed knew the gun system was locked into that ammo, so hey why not?