Here’s a quick, fun item …
How many battleships did the US build during WWII? Several, maybe a dozen? This may shock you but the answer is zero. We didn’t produce a single battleship during WWII.
What??? That can’t be true! We built the North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa classes, right? Wrong! Only 8 battleships were commissioned during WWII and all of them began building (laid down) before the war started. In other words, we were unable to start and finish a single battleship during the war.
Following is a list of the BBs commissioned during the war. Note that they were all laid down pre-war.
|
|
Laid Down |
Commissioned |
|
South Dakota |
5-Jul-1939 |
20-Mar-1942 |
|
Indiana |
20-Sep-1939 |
30-Apr-1942 |
|
Massachusetts |
20-Jul-1939 |
12-May-1942 |
|
Alabama |
1-Feb-1940 |
16-Aug-1942 |
|
Iowa |
27-Jun-1940 |
22-Feb-1943 |
|
New Jersey |
16-Sep-1940 |
23-May-1943 |
|
Missouri |
6-Jan-1941 |
11-Jun-1944 |
|
Wisconsin |
25-Jan-1941 |
16-Apr-1944 |
We only started (laid down) 2 battleships (Illinois and Kentucky) during the war. Neither was finished and both wound up being scrapped prior to completion when the war ended.
In contrast, 19 fleet carriers commissioned during WWII and 16 of those were laid down during the war.
No particular point to this post, just a fun fact!
Kaiser shipyards offered to make escort carriers. The US Navy officers, trained with pride at the academy to know that commercial shipyards could not handle the terribly complex tasks of making a navy ship. declined strongly.
ReplyDeleteKaiser started making them for the Royal Navy. FDR ordered the US Navy officers to stop being so stupid and accept the carriers.
50 Casablanca class carriers. 6 months time from keel start to in commission.
From "30 months to build a battleship" to "30 years and the plane still isn't fully operational".
ReplyDeleteVery sad.
Jackie Fisher
ReplyDeleteWayne Gretzky
DeleteAlaska , laid down 12/17/41, commissioned 7/17/44
ReplyDeleteGuam, laid down 2/2/42, commissioned 9/17/44
30,000 tonner BC
2 years 7 months for a 1st in class
2 years 7 months and 16 days 2nd class
And it had a unique main gun, that worked.
Harrummphhh…..
The point being?
DeleteWe did build BCs start to finish in wartime.
DeleteThe Friedman trivia question would be
what was the largest US warship designed & built in wartime ?
The Alaskas were pre-war designs, with war time AA fits.
Yes, we built cruisers during WWII, however, they're not battleships. We also built destroyers. Again, is there a point you'd like to make?
DeleteThe US was late entering WWII due to strong the isolationism movement and only declared war Dec '41 after the Pearl Harbor attack, Britain and France had declared war on Germany two years and two months earlier Sep '39 after the invasion of Poland, Japan had invaded China back in Jul '37. Whatever the writing was on the wall and the date the battleships were laid down reflects that.
ReplyDeleteDo not take this the wrong way because I love battleships but......But what did the battleships really do during the war? In the surface actions around Guadalcanal they helped....but really after that they were relegated to pre-assault bombardment. The age of the battleship died 07 Dec 1941 as the pre-eminent force projection instrument.
DeleteThe BBs allowed the freedom of movement of the carrier and amphib forces by being the ever-present counter to the Japanese BBs. Without our own BBs, we would have had to have been much more cautious and limited in our movements and actions out of fear of the Japanese battleship threat.
DeleteBBs relegated any non-BB Japanese force to near irrelevance.
BBs turned out to be awesomely powerful anti-aircraft platforms for escorting carriers. They were the Aegis platforms of their day and were nearly immune to air attack or even kamikaze attacks.
BBs ensured that our naval forces maintained parity or superiority with any Japanese force and assured our naval dominance of the Pacific.
As a threat in being, BBs prevented any Japanese offensive efforts after Guadalcanal. We'll never know how many Japanese plans were discarded due to the threat of BBs (and carriers!).
And, of course, the BBs did play a significant, direct role at Leyte!
Assets don't always have to be kinetically involved to exert a positive influence on events. Consider the outsized influence the Tirpitz exerted on convoys. Without ever moving, Tirpitz utterly destroyed convoys just by existing and causing fear and panic.
I trust that answers your question.
...Yes, the WW2 carrier operations were essentially dawn-to-dusk in reasonable weather. They were at risk from heavy enemy surface forces at night and in bad weather. The BBs eliminated that threat...
DeleteCOMNAVOPS......your answer is beyond enlightening. Thank you for taking the time to answer. I am not being sarcastic, I am sincere!
Delete@Coffee Man, Happy to help. One of the pitfalls we all (me included!) fall prey to, from time to time, is the desire to see a direct, one-to-one action and result (how many ships did the battleship sink). It's simple and we can quantify it. The reality, however, is that often actions and results are much more indirect, nebulous, and are linked to other factors. That makes it messy and difficult to see benefits (or problems!). We need to constantly remind ourselves to look at the overall picture and be cautious when we zoom in to the closeup view. There's value in the closeup but it has to be balanced with the overall view. Hope that makes sense!
Delete"The age of the battleship died 07 Dec 1941 as the pre-eminent force projection instrument."
DeletePerhaps (although I think not !) but then ask yourself what has taken the place of the battleship IN THE LARGER PICTURE? What, today, ensures that our naval forces cannot be overmatched? What ensures our freedom of movement by negating any and all threats? What is our threat in being that is giving pause to Chinese war planners? Even if you think that the BB, as a distinct platform, is no longer relevant (again, I disagree !), what has taken its place at the higher, more operational and strategic level, as I described above? Do we have a BB strategic replacement or is that one of our missing pieces?
Just because the BB is gone (no !) doesn't mean that the role it filled is gone. What fills that role today?
"...what has taken the place of the battleship IN THE LARGER PICTURE? "
DeleteId suggest that the battleship, the massive battle fleets of WWI, and the lingering mentality of it, never had the war changing or winning effect that they were expected to. They took on secondary roles in WWII, and again , never had the massive effect on a countries status in war that their designers and proponents envisioned. But, Id venture that their modern day equivalent is actually the SSBN. While the great war fleets WERE built to be used, there was a lot of deterrence built into those ships as the newest, biggest and best was constantly pursued and the state of the art changed not over decades, but years. In the era of the battleship, they had the most firepower and ability to bring it to an enemy of any weapon system. So today's SSBN are a nations "ultimate weapon", as the battleships were in their day.
I would say that the SSGN is a stealthy modern day battleship, with the ability to go into an area and saturate that place with over 100 cruise missiles. and survive that day to do it again at pretty much the time and place of its choosing.
Delete"I would say that the SSGN is a stealthy modern day battleship"
DeleteIn a very limited sense, it is, however, it fills only a single one of the battleship's functions: shore attack. It can't fill anti-ship or anti-air. Yes, it has torpedoes that could be used to attack a ship that got in its way but that's not its purpose and no sane sub captain would risk a precious SSGN in anti-surface warfare. It's far too valuable as a pure strike platform.
So, yes, it admirably fills ONE of the BB's functions.
If you recall, the BB was designed for a single purpose: anti-ship, specifically, anti-BB. The other functions (shore attack and anti-air) were fortuitous developments that became secondary - though highly useful ! - functions.
This goes back to keeping the ships simple and pick the right gear and get lots of all of it. If we are building 4 of a type per year before the war, we might have a navy.
ReplyDeleteWonder if someone in 80 years from now will have a similar question-response: what class a ship will stop being produced and replaced by something like USV and no one realized it at the time? My guess is FORD carrier class will be the last.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the point should be that we focus on Battlecruiser, cruiser and escort carrier sized ships during war.
ReplyDeleteThe threat of 50 ships’ outweighs the threat of 15-20 ships
Using that hypothesis and knowing things get hit, sunk and otherwise made combat ineffective the middle ground seems like it far outweighs the oversized efforts to build battleship sized ships
"BBs turned out to be awesomely powerful anti-aircraft platforms for escorting carriers. They were the Aegis platforms of their day and were nearly immune to air attack or even kamikaze attacks"
ReplyDeletePearl Harbor and the losses of the eventual loss of the Musashi and Yamato fundamentally demonstrated that Battleships were ill equipped to defend against air attack. While they are a very useful platform for overwhelming attacks on island targets they are a very expensive gunnery platforms. GIven the time and resources it was easier and better to focus on carriers that could project power vs battleships that needed the area completely cleared of air or undersea threats.
The ironic thing is that US carriers are becoming like the battleships, continually bigger and more expensive with fewer escorts. A more numerous and less expansive platform for drones and aircraft in general is fare better than placing all your eggs in one basket. BBs were a big basket and CVNs are trending that way. The old school BB Admirals are now the big CVN Admirals.
"demonstrated that Battleships were ill equipped to defend against air attack."
DeleteFirst, the comments apply ONLY to US battleships.
Second, you need to study actual combat reports about anti-air defense. Battleships were the most powerful anti-air platforms available and were highly effective as well as being almost immune to the effects of air attack due to their extensive armor. The concentration of 5", 40 mm, and 20 mm was incredible and highly effective.
Third, Pearl Harbor demonstrated nothing except that dreadnought era battleships that are moored and defenseless can be sunk.
Your views are contradicted by the facts and actual battle experience.