Bismarck and Tirpitz canceled for more Scharnhorst-class

Just one little problem with this. Duetschland could blow those 6" gunned ships out of the water before the RN even got in range. Hell, ONE hit from an 11" shell will blow something the size of the Arethusa damn near in two.
After the battle defending JW51B, the Soviets refused to believe that the destroyer escort had been engaging German heavy ships until someone found part of the base of an 8" shell on board Onslow and gave it to them to measure. Note that Onslow made it to Kola under it's own power and only suffered 17 dead. To then suggest that a single 11" shell would blow a cruiser in two seems deeply implausible.
 
Except your wildly maneuvering cruiser will be ever bit as handicapped in her gunnery by those same manuevers. To shoot accurately, they would need to stay on a realitivly steady course themselves and that makes them a sitting duck.

And where are you getting 1 RPM from? Even accounting for combat stress, you're not going to see a reduction in rate of fire by almost 2/3.



So much wrong here. You're about 30 years behind the times on gunnery ranges. Without radar, shooting at extreme range was inaccurate. But you're overlooking something. What is extreme range for the cruiser, is nowhere near extreme for Duetschland. In fact it's some 13-15k yards within range. Meaning those guns will be deadly accurate. You're assertion that they will only be accurate within TORPEDO range is frankly ridiculous. Even in WWI, battles were routinely fought at ranges far in excess of torpedo range. And if by some miracle or utter stupidity a 6" gunned ship gets in THAT close, Duetschland doesn't need all 6 guns. Just one gun firing at point blank range will destroy the cruiser long before the cruiser can "smoother" her.

The British were the ONLY ones to espouse large numbers of small 6" cruisers. And it wasn't because they were so all fired amazing. It was because they were CHEAP. Both the Americans and the Japanese found that their 8" gunned ships were far more practical.

Last point, I see you've now done a 180 on your argument from, "the British had FIFTY cruisers of comparable or slightly smaller size" to, "size doesn't matter! Gun size doesn't matter! Gun range doesn't matter!" It's very hard to take you seriously when you flip-flop like that


I may suggest you to follow some lessons at the Naval academy for naval gunnery and gunnery pracitces. All repsected naval instructors and Naval historians agree on the mere fact that the higher rate of fire is the way to overcome a theoretical one hit, one kill by a larger gun. Simply said: "If you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it will stick" The Pacific showed the 8 inch slower rate of fire gun was a major flaw in the brawling in the Solomons, as it was too cumbersome and slow in rate of fire to deal with short range threats. At Barentzsea, Lutzow fought the theoretically inferior 6 inch gunners HMS Sheffield and HMS Jamaica, scoring no hits on them, while her consort Hipper was critically damaged by these so called inferior light cruisers.

In other words, your statement is way off. Reality showed a different outcome in any engagement dealing with the heavily armed cruiser, vs a lighter armed one. There is no record of any engamement where the bigger gunned ship came out victorious, as Graf Spee was unable to defend herself against Harwoods cruisers, Lutzow equally impotent against Burnet's cruisers and in the Pacific the tide turned when the Clevelands came in service, replacing the heavy cruisers in the surface action groups to combat with guns against the Japanese.

Here the statement is: "bigger is not better". Other factors are much more important in warfare at sea.
 
I may suggest you to follow some lessons at the Naval academy for naval gunnery and gunnery pracitces. All repsected naval instructors and Naval historians agree on the mere fact that the higher rate of fire is the way to overcome a theoretical one hit, one kill by a larger gun. Simply said: "If you throw enough shit at the wall, some of it will stick" The Pacific showed the 8 inch slower rate of fire gun was a major flaw in the brawling in the Solomons, as it was too cumbersome and slow in rate of fire to deal with short range threats. At Barentzsea, Lutzow fought the theoretically inferior 6 inch gunners HMS Sheffield and HMS Jamaica, scoring no hits on them, while her consort Hipper was critically damaged by these so called inferior light cruisers.

In other words, your statement is way off. Reality showed a different outcome in any engagement dealing with the heavily armed cruiser, vs a lighter armed one. There is no record of any engamement where the bigger gunned ship came out victorious, as Graf Spee was unable to defend herself against Harwoods cruisers, Lutzow equally impotent against Burnet's cruisers and in the Pacific the tide turned when the Clevelands came in service, replacing the heavy cruisers in the surface action groups to combat with guns against the Japanese.

Here the statement is: "bigger is not better". Other factors are much more important in warfare at sea.

I think if you pause and draw breath a minute you might realise that you have rather lost sight of your original point and embarked down a rather dubious tangent. I mean citing the Admiral Graf Spee automatically raises the question of what happened to her namesake when he had the smaller gun?

Instead may I suggest that your original point was that the British remembered that cruisers were....well cruisers...they built them just big enough to get the job done, extra was not needed as the only way to prevent them being eaten by battlecruisers or fast battleships was to build them as battlecruisers or fast battleships which defeated the object. The problem with the Deutschland class was the same issue as identified by the US Naval War College concerning the armoured cruiser. It was too expensive a ship to be easily built in numbers but it was not a battleship either. Battleships are not necessarily mission killed until you degrade their combat power but cruisers typically operated further from home and expected to keep the sea for longer. Thus hits such as the Graf Spee suffered were unacceptable as they prevented her from completing her mission which was at the River Plate to be able to return home. Likewise the Hipper retained her combat power but suffered engine room damage compromising her mission of hunting and killing merchant shipping transporting supplies to the Soviet Union.

On the other hand while the Exeter suffered the total loss of her combat power she survived having blown away the Graf Spee's oil purification plant. Thus given that her mission was trade protection and she crippled a raider and could be restored to service meant she performed her mission. The Battle of the River Plate showed that 8,000 ton cruisers could be built to survive 11 inch hits, they would feel a bit unwell afterwards but they could survive. Given a cruiser and indeed a battleship could not armour everything and thus both tended to protect their vitals there were lots of bits such as spotting gear and later radar, aircraft and hangar facilities which were enormously important to a raider looking to find targets and things like galleys, fuel tanks even steering gear which were needed to allow long distance cruising, there are a lot of spots on a raider that can be hurt enough to end her mission without requiring loading a trade protection vessel with the biggest gun. Thus for the British there was never really the need to try and build mini-battleships, pocket or otherwise.
 

SsgtC

Banned
After the battle defending JW51B, the Soviets refused to believe that the destroyer escort had been engaging German heavy ships until someone found part of the base of an 8" shell on board Onslow and gave it to them to measure. Note that Onslow made it to Kola under it's own power and only suffered 17 dead. To then suggest that a single 11" shell would blow a cruiser in two seems deeply implausible.

I was specifically referring to the Arethusa-class cruisers with that comment. Maybe not blown in two, but definitely critically damaged.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
There is no burst firing with auto-loading turrets ...at most you have FCS procedure's to best use ranging before engagement. The reason reported for the 6" turret- was to delay middle gun to avoid outer shell path due to dispersion.
Gun rate of fire varies, this should be obvious because we're talking about varying rate of fire?

You always get better results with a rested crew early in the sequence because fatigue hasn't set in yet and they're more alert.
As for the 6" turret, delay to avoid dispersion shouldn't result in a change from 8 rpm (rounds every 8 seconds) to 6 rpm (rounds every 10 seconds) because in that 2 second delay the first round's moved about half a mile!
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I was specifically referring to the Arethusa-class cruisers with that comment. Maybe not blown in two, but definitely critically damaged.
At the Battle Off Samar the USS Johnston (a 2700 ton "tincan" destroyer) took three 18.1" shells at once from Yamato (source: Lungdren, The World Wonder'd). She was definitely damaged, but continued to fight and indeed was only prevented from mounting torpedo attack by the fact she'd already used them all.

A single 11" shell on a 5200 ton cruiser? It'll do some damage, yes, but it'll only disable if it hits something vital.
 
Quite. With hits, location is everything.

Also, my understanding is that the RN deliberately chose small cruisers because they were designed to be fleet escorts and therefore had to be more light cruiser than armoured cruiser - another lesson of Jutland.

The USN and IJN had Pacific ranges and fewer bases, so that option was restricted, and their cruisers tended to be more second class battleship than fleet escort.
 
At the Battle Off Samar the USS Johnston (a 2700 ton "tincan" destroyer) took three 18.1" shells at once from Yamato (source: Lungdren, The World Wonder'd). She was definitely damaged, but continued to fight and indeed was only prevented from mounting torpedo attack by the fact she'd already used them all.

A single 11" shell on a 5200 ton cruiser? It'll do some damage, yes, but it'll only disable if it hits something vital.

Debatable as Yamato did not score hits with her main battery appart from a possible hit on USS Gambier Bay, not USS Johnston, as she was not engaged by the Japanese Flagship, but by Kongo's group. See other discussion on this board about Samar Bay battle. Yamato fired only 108 rounds of main gun ammunition, part of it was "3 Shiki tsûjôdan", or: "Common Type 3 Sankaidan Anti-Aircraft Shell". As all were fired at long range, the changes of hitting something were small. Kongo and the cruisers engaged at closer ranges, also using their secondary batteries and heavy AA against surface targets, while Yamato and Nagato ran away after a few torpedoes came in their direction.
 
Gun rate of fire varies, this should be obvious because we're talking about varying rate of fire?

You always get better results with a rested crew early in the sequence because fatigue hasn't set in yet and they're more alert.
As for the 6" turret, delay to avoid dispersion shouldn't result in a change from 8 rpm (rounds every 8 seconds) to 6 rpm (rounds every 10 seconds) because in that 2 second delay the first round's moved about half a mile!



I agree, but according to navweapons it did.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_6-50_mk23.php

Rate Of Fire
(see Notes)
6 - 8 rounds per minute
"British Cruisers of World War Two" says that the rate of fire in action for the triple mountings was about five to six rounds per gun per minute. See additional information in the "Mount / Turret" notes below

I stand corrected , the dispersion problem mattered in the quad mount, not the triple mount.
 
On the other hand while the Exeter suffered the total loss of her combat power she survived having blown away the Graf Spee's oil purification plant. Thus given that her mission was trade protection and she crippled a raider and could be restored to service meant she performed her mission. The Battle of the River Plate showed that 8,000 ton cruisers could be built to survive 11 inch hits, they would feel a bit unwell afterwards but they could survive. Given a cruiser and indeed a battleship could not armour everything and thus both tended to protect their vitals there were lots of bits such as spotting gear and later radar, aircraft and hangar facilities which were enormously important to a raider looking to find targets and things like galleys, fuel tanks even steering gear which were needed to allow long distance cruising, there are a lot of spots on a raider that can be hurt enough to end her mission without requiring loading a trade protection vessel with the biggest gun. Thus for the British there was never really the need to try and build mini-battleships, pocket or otherwise.

There is still much debate about the 'oil purification plant'. Recovered damage reports the plant damaged but not destroyed and some sources report the AGS could still manage 16 days at cruise speed [O'Hara] certainly able to return to Germany especially if its dedicated Dithmarschen tanker was escorting.

You should know the damage to EXETER was severe spending >year in repair, while the other two cruisers spent 2 months and 6 months in repair.
At least one skipper declared -to his dying days - that he could never understand why Langsdorff didn't just finish them off.

Langsdorff actions in the battle have been widely criticised, with some German posters claim he was to be sacked upon return to Germany.
 

hipper

Banned
And Scharnhorst's 11" guns could penetrate just about any capital ship within about 20,000yds.

She might not be able to fight Duke of York one on one, but those 11" guns still had some serious bite to them.

Er no they could not only the Renown and repulse would be in danger if being penetrated by 700 lb shells at 20,000 yards (9" Belts)

And probably under 10,000 yards to penetrate the 13.5" armour of an actual British Battleship.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Debatable as Yamato did not score hits with her main battery appart from a possible hit on USS Gambier Bay, not USS Johnston, as she was not engaged by the Japanese Flagship, but by Kongo's group. See other discussion on this board about Samar Bay battle. Yamato fired only 108 rounds of main gun ammunition, part of it was "3 Shiki tsûjôdan", or: "Common Type 3 Sankaidan Anti-Aircraft Shell". As all were fired at long range, the changes of hitting something were small. Kongo and the cruisers engaged at closer ranges, also using their secondary batteries and heavy AA against surface targets, while Yamato and Nagato ran away after a few torpedoes came in their direction.
As I said I was relying on The World Wonder'd. If not it was still 14" fire.
 

hipper

Banned
http://www.navweaps.com/index_nathan/Penetration_Germany.htm

According to this site the gun can manage 16-17" @ 10,000 yards. The 13.5" belts could be cut through at 14-16,000 yards.

Glad to see you've moved away from cut through the armour of any capital ship at 20,000 yards,

the Krupp range tables on the navy weapons site suggest 10,900 yards is the range to penetrate 13.7" armour. At Jutland no german 11" shell penetrated more than 9 inches of armour I don't think shell performance had improved by over 50% in 20 years.

Cheers Hipper
 

SsgtC

Banned
Glad to see you've moved away from cut through the armour of any capital ship at 20,000 yards,

the Krupp range tables on the navy weapons site suggest 10,900 yards is the range to penetrate 13.7" armour. At Jutland no german 11" shell penetrated more than 9 inches of armour I don't think shell performance had improved by over 50% in 20 years.

Cheers Hipper

No, but engagement ranges had lengthened. The German 11" shell could penetrate most deck armor. So in that regard I could see them taking on a battleship if they were forced into it
 
Glad to see you've moved away from cut through the armour of any capital ship at 20,000 yards,

the Krupp range tables on the navy weapons site suggest 10,900 yards is the range to penetrate 13.7" armour. At Jutland no german 11" shell penetrated more than 9 inches of armour I don't think shell performance had improved by over 50% in 20 years.

Cheers Hipper
Shooting at the wrong target , that was some other poster.
 
After the battle defending JW51B, the Soviets refused to believe that the destroyer escort had been engaging German heavy ships until someone found part of the base of an 8" shell on board Onslow and gave it to them to measure. Note that Onslow made it to Kola under it's own power and only suffered 17 dead. To then suggest that a single 11" shell would blow a cruiser in two seems deeply implausible.

Naturally in the same battle, the Achates (roughly the same displacement) was sunk by two direct hits by the Hipper, and the Eckoldt (heavier displacement) was sunk in two minutes of intense firing by the Sheffield (biggest caliber being 152mm).

But all of this talk about actual performance in combat of ships, their guns, and their armor is pretty irrelevant.
The issue here isn't what some more or less badly informed poster of this forum, today, believes he knows about the warships of the 1930s.
The point is what we know the British admiralty thought of the German fleet at the time. And we do know they very strongly disliked a swarm of German surface raiders, and that they never said anything like, "oh, those will displace more or less like one of twenty of our cruisers, let them build a half dozen, or a dozen, we don't care".
 
At the battle of river plate, AGS got 9 hits on 405 11" shells fired or ~ 45:1 . Exeter got 3 hits on 200 * 8" shells ~ 67:1. Based on RPM the AGS should get I hit after 15 minutes , while Exeter should be 17 minutes, while 6" gun cruisers got 17 hits on 2065 shells launched or 121:1. At 5-6 RPM the 6" gun cruiser should a get hit every 2 minutes , so are a threat to treaty cruisers, but most of the 17 hits on the AGS shattered and did little damage. On the other hand each 11" shell hit caused 'fearsome' damage to cruisers that were hit.

Just a thing but Exeter had only been in action for a few minutes before an 11" shell hit and badly damaged B turret and the fwd magazines were flooded as a precaution effectively reducing poor old Exeter to her single aft twin 8" which had to be fired under local control.

However according to most resources I have read on the battle Exeter had already scored the important hit near to the AGS's funnel impacting her fuel supplies.

Also Achilles and Ajax reported that AGS's fire was accurate but erratic and 405 shells fired over the 80 odd minutes of the main engagement is about 5 RPM (assuming that all are fired in that time) which implies that AGS was not firing anywhere close to 2.5 salvos a minute!

Anyway got to go more on this later
 
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