Most powerful Battleship of WWII .

Most Powerful Battleship of WWII

  • Nelson class UK .

    Votes: 2 1.7%
  • Queen Elizabeth class UK .

    Votes: 9 7.7%
  • Dunkerque class France .

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Littorio class Italy .

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Deutschland class Germany .

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Scharnhorst class Germany .

    Votes: 1 0.9%
  • Bismarck class Germany .

    Votes: 5 4.3%
  • Kongo class Japan .

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Fuso and Ise classes Japan .

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Yamato class Japan .

    Votes: 28 23.9%
  • Nagato class Japan .

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Iowa class US .

    Votes: 69 59.0%
  • South Dakota class US .

    Votes: 1 0.9%

  • Total voters
    117
In actual surface combat the Yamato gave a decent account of itself at Samar. She was responsible for more damage to the US force than any other single Japanese warship and scored arguably the longest hit by a surface gun against a moving target in history (34,000 yards against USS White Plains).
 
I think the Yamatos were the most powerful battleships. The Iowas are sort of in the same league, but that's because they were the battlecruisers to the Montana battleship class that belonged to the next generation of warships.

I think the King George V class did the job they were built for most closely.
 
The Twins because they sank the most ships.

Also sinking the Glorious damaged the Royal Navy more than Bismarck sinking the Hood.
 
The way the naval tactics of WWII played out battleships got most of their use with shore bombardment rather than fighting each other. The Iowa and Yamota class ships never really got a chance to fight as they were designed. The Iowas had an extremely long life span, but it was only shelling shore targets who couldn't shoot back. The Iowa ships could still be used today in places like Somalia to be a deterrent to pirates and shell shore targets. But that same role can be performed by much smaller and cheaper ships.

The German battleships probably provided the most impact versus their cost since they did directly sink some allied ships and diverted a lot of resources.
 
What was in your opinion the most powerful Battleship of the second world war ?When I say powerful I dont mean size or number of guns ,but how effective she was at doing her job .That job might have been diverting the enemies resources away from other fronts to keep you in port .Destroying your enemies fleet ,posing a deterrent that your enemy has to get through .Or any other role that BB`s did during the war .
Personally the QE class, any ships that can still do its job from 1914-48 wins on cost effectiveness even if she was not cheaper than the rest anyway.
(and you have a 1 in 5 chance its called Warspite)
 

Archibald

Banned
As noted earlier, the list lacks the Richelieu and Jean Bart (although the latter was only complete in the 50's)
 
guys he's asking which class were the most influential, not which were the best ships.

If we're going by that definition, then the Yamato class qualfies...because the fact they were effortlessly sunk by air attack discredited the battleship for good.:p
 
If we're going by that definition, then the Yamato class qualfies...because the fact they were effortlessly sunk by air attack discredited the battleship for good.:p

"effortlessly" is probably an overstatement.

The method they were sunk by though is to this day similar to an attack profile that the U.S. Navy designates for sinking large surface combatants like the Slava or Kirov class Russian built vessels.

In the case of the Yamato class ships, the U.S. used dive bombers to destroy the anti aircraft capability of the ships where upon the torpedo bombers were able to come in and finish the job.

In this day and age, IIRC the attack profile for the U.S. is to send in a bunch of cruise missiles to damage the targets anti air capability and then send in carrier based attack planes with heavy bomb loads to finish them off.
 
I'd put the Deutschland class in second place. Although they were coast defence ships with attitude, rather than "proper" battleships.

Firstly for the number of merchant ships they sank and secondly because the ships the RN sent to find them was a significant diversion of resources from the main fleets.

Third place to the Queen Elisabeth class because of Second Narvik, Calabria and Matapan.

Joint fourth place to the Bismarck class and the Italian battleships because of their value as a fleet in being rather than the few battles that they fought.
 

DougM

Donor
non of the above

If you are looking for the battleship that had the most effect by its actions on the war, then I would have to say the Arizona.
It's getting sunk in a surprise attack on a Sunday morning at the beginning of the Christmas season was something that a whole generation of folks still get upset thinking about. And remember that Sunday morning and church services was a much more important part of American life in 1941, then it is today. So that aspect as well as the Christmas season both added to the anger.
It pretty much guaranteed that the US would not accept a negotiated peace.

So while it was an old ship and all it did was get sunk, the influence/effect of it's sinking was huge.

If you are talking about ships that fought, I would say Iowa and or her sisters. I had an uncle that was on cruisers and destroyers from befor the ear started and I have read his journal, and he comments more then once that the crew was much happier and more relaxed when ever one of the Iowas were around. So the moral value along of these ships was Hugh.

-Doug M
 
The OP hasn't even done his research properly, Germany should have, at most, two classes (there were two Deutschland classes, one a pre-dread, the other a heavy cruiser, neither of which should count). Seriously, during the war Britain employed 4 classes, and the US 10, yet they get two classes each in the poll, half what the Japanese get for their 5 classes.
 
The single most effective Battleship of WW2 has to be HMS Warspite . she served from day one and was in action in decisive roles for the entire war until late 1944 . she was old but she took on far younger and on paper better opponents and belted them hard .
 
I'd put the Deutschland class in second place. Although they were coast defence ships with attitude, rather than "proper" battleships.

Firstly for the number of merchant ships they sank and secondly because the ships the RN sent to find them was a significant diversion of resources from the main fleets.

Third place to the Queen Elisabeth class because of Second Narvik, Calabria and Matapan.

Joint fourth place to the Bismarck class and the Italian battleships because of their value as a fleet in being rather than the few battles that they fought.

Ignoring that the Deutschlands were heavy cruisers and not BBs - they sank significantly less merchant ships, much less efficiently than submarines. I'm also confused by the diversion of resources - the protection of the UKs SLOCs is one of the primary duties of the RN, and any diversion of resource never reduced the power of the main fleets vis a vis the enemy fleet they were shadowing to any material effect, so what you seem to be saying is the Deutschlands got the RN to do its job?
 
How to Battleship

Well I went for the Queens - but what I was really voting for was HMS Warspite who showed all of the others "how to Battleship"

Britain certainly got its moneys worth out of Warspite

The Big bad post treaty 16" armed US ships are the Best BBs ever built but they existed alongside, and to a great extent in the shadow of, the Essex Carriers and the new era of overwhelming USN airpower late in the war

The Japanese Giants again did Sweet FA - Yamato made a nice mushroom cloud at the end

Tirpitz did tie down allied assets but then they largely had the assets to be tied down.
 
Ignoring that the Deutschlands were heavy cruisers and not BBs - they sank significantly less merchant ships, much less efficiently than submarines.
It's debatable whether the Deutschlands should be classed as armoured cruisers or 3rd class battleships, but the World War II submarine definitely wasn't a capital ship and the question was about battleships and not warships in general.
I'm also confused by the diversion of resources - the protection of the UKs SLOCs is one of the primary duties of the RN, and any diversion of resource never reduced the power of the main fleets vis a vis the enemy fleet they were shadowing to any material effect, so what you seem to be saying is the Deutschlands got the RN to do its job?

No, what I was saying was the Deutschlands actually sank some ships and did the job they were designed to do before radar and long range aircraft made it impracticable.
 

Delta Force

Banned
The battleships that conducted naval bombardments and air defense were the most useful given the circumstances. In many cases the ships even dated back to World War I, although with various reconstructions performed in the interim. Low to no-cost battleships that made unique contributions to the war can certainly be considered to have been the most cost-effective of the battleships deployed.
 
Tirpitz did tie down allied assets but then they largely had the assets to be tied down.

I was trying to figure out the effect of Tirpitz on the war, in terms of how the assets would have been used elsewhere.

She arrives in Norway in January 1942. Not much happens until the summer, whereupon PQ-17. This is unquestionable strategic success, but what are its consequences to the war in Russia? Superficially, they appear limited. PQ-18 was forced through at severe cost to German torpedo bombers two months later anyway.

The other major operation in summer 1942 is the resupply of Malta. But Pedestal is an escort operation; battleships are needed, but the Nelsons were fine in the slow convoy escort role. So while the KGVs would have been welcome in the Med then, they weren't strictly needed and would not have been able to protect Pedestal from most of its historical losses. Elsewhere, there's nothing for them to do in the Indian Ocean and I'm not sure how feasible it would have been for them to have fitted into the the fighting in the Pacific, based on the example of USS Robin. Anyway, the threat of the remaining German heavies would probably have forced the KGVs to remain in northern waters.

So I think the value of the Tirpitz can be overstated. She did cause headaches and great disruption to Allied operations, but the strategic consequences of deploying the counter forces seem to have been limited.
 
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