Could Calbear mean the two Altanta class AA Cruisers of which Juneau was one?
Warships that should never been built?
- Thread starter Admiral Bloonbeard
- Start date
Atlanta and Juneau were both lost in the Solomons to torpedo hits, REALLY unlucky ships. Atlanta took a crippling torpedo hit in the first Naval Battle Of Guadalcanal that more or less gutted her engineering, then she was hit by part of three broadsides from the San Francisco in a textbook blue-on-blue. She made it back a temporary anchorage but was deemed beyond salvage and was scuttled.
Juneau took a torpedo in the same engagement, but survived and was capable of maneuvering at 15 knots. She, along with San Francisco and Helena, both of which were also badly damaged, were withdrawing back to Espiritu Santo when they ran across the track of a Japanese I-boat. It took a shot at the San Francisco, but misjudged the speed of the column, as a result Juneau took another hit on the same side as the first torpedo. That was quite enough for her, she broke in half and sank in under half a minute. The other two U.S. ships took one look at the fireball and figured, not unreasonably, that she was lost with all hands. Wrong. About 100 survivors went into the water. By the time they were located, starting EIGHT DAYS after the sinking, only ten men were rescued. Juneau was the ship where the five "Sullivan Brothers" were assigned, three of them made it into the water, none of them survived.
Neither ship had any business being in a surface action.
I did. I screwed up the class name. I was trying to remember if the 12 gun sub-class was called the San Diego or Oakland class and had a brain cramp.
Did the wastes of steel use up 3 slipways that could have been another Baltimore and 2 more CVLs?
SsgtC
Banned
Honestly, with the resources poured into them, both Illinois and Kentucky could have been finished along with Oriskany, Reprisal and Iwo Jima.
That would be the Cleveland class, which was developed from the preceding Brooklyn class and not an Atlanta sub-class. The Clevelands were an example of trying to get a quart into a pint pot, with too much armament on too small a hull; in practice they were found to be top-heavy and unstable and were quickly retired after war's end.
The Atlantas were actually intended as AA cruisers for carrier escort, which they were well suited for, but were pressed into service as surface combatants due to being some of the few ships available at that moment. In other circumstances they could have been quite useful; they would have completely outmatched any Japanese destroyer or light cruiser they faced in a daylight engagement.
EDIT: Ah, you mean the Oakland class, a four ship class derived from the Atlantas. The Oaklands omitted the two wing turrets to increase stability, a common problem in this era of ship design. Lest anyone think this is solely a US problem we can point to the Japanese navy for examples such as the Chidori class of torpedo boats, which was so top heavy that one (Tomozuru) capsized in a storm. A typhoon later that year (1935) damaged several more vessels, causing the IJN to implement major refitting programs to correct these issues.
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They were the only ships of the era that could stick with Lexington & Saratoga on high speed runs. This was used in several fleet excercises when Lex or Sara made runs in to attack targets.
I am going to suggest (from a British POV) not building the Hawkins class of heavy cruiser
Not because they were a bad design or anything just that they initiated an unintended arms race of 10,000 ton cruisers
Had they not been built then it is possible that the WNT might have limited Cruisers to 8000 tons or less and armament down to 6"
Not because they were a bad design or anything just that they initiated an unintended arms race of 10,000 ton cruisers
Had they not been built then it is possible that the WNT might have limited Cruisers to 8000 tons or less and armament down to 6"
Two CVL at a minimum. New York Shipbuilding Co. didn't build its first Baltimore until early 1943, but Hawaii wasn't laid down until the end of 1943, so that space could have been used for Baltimore at that time, or a Cleveland somewhat earlier.
the German Admiral Hipper class heavy cruisers, unbelievably heavy, with sensitive machinery for an 8 inch armed cruiser. They where over engineered trash
SsgtC
Banned
That's highly doubtful. While the British wanted the smaller cruisers, neither the US nor Japan did. AIUI, it was the existence of the Hawkins class that convinced the USN and IJN to agree to a 10,000 ton and 8" weight limit when they both wanted larger cruisers
Well neither the US or Japan built any Crusiers larger than 8000 tons until the Mid/late 20s (Pensacola and Myōkō-class) and the IJN in response to the Omaha and Hawkins!
Every KM ship larger than a Light Cruiser was a waste. The KM needs subs, lots of them, from the first day of the war.
Yorktown was salvageable with the two fish from Hiryu's Kates: had I-168 not arrived, it's likely she would've been towed into Pearl, drydocked, and then sent to the West Coast. Those two Type 89s from the sub are what finally killed her.
The only U.S. carrier lost in 1942 that would've been lost had 1944-45 damage control been available was Wasp. She was a goner no matter what. But it took the lessons of Coral Sea (draining avgas lines and filling them with carbon dioxide), and Santa Cruz (more portable pumps and generators for fire-fighting and for getting boilers relit) before things got better from a damage-control perspective. 1945: look at Franklin and Bunker Hill: a year earlier, those two ships probably would've been lost. Franklin's damage was comparable to the IJN carriers at Midway, and she survived. Bunker Hill, also.
Doenitz wanted 300 U-Boats on Day One. Hitler gave him 30 ocean-going boats. Admiral Raeder told Doenitz "We can't be a navy of U-boats." And as long as the failed artist and his Navy chief are fans of big ships, the Bismarck-class BBs, most of the Hippers, and the destroyers are going to be finished.
Heck Lexington almost survived as her captain smelled the fumes and ordered her vented two minutes before the first explosion. Had the explosion not happened within fifteen minutes of that order it wouldn't have happened and Lexington probably would have been back in action by the time of Santa Cruz. And the lessons still would have been learned. As for Yorktown surviving all that was required was for her screening destroyers not falling asleep and letting I-168 through or you know sinking her or for her to dodge one more torpedo from Hiryu which would have resulted in her not being prematurely abandoned which probably means she's either been towed by a cruiser a fair distance and/or got her engines back online to some degree and thus is long gone by the time I-168 shows up
Then you might like this.
From pages 98 and 99 of Modern Combat Ships 5 - Type 21 by Captain John Lippiett, RN.
There is a line drawing of the Seawolf Type 21 at the top of Page 98 and below that is the artists impression of the ship that was also on the lid of Seastrike.
RamscoopRaider
Donor
Militarily they needed subs. Politically they needed a Balanced fleet. In this they were not a waste, a balanced fleet helped convince Britain to support the appeasement train as long as it held up, therefore the Twins, Bismarcks, Hippers and GZ were not a waste, though work on large ships after them was as by that point jig was up. Building huge loads of subs in '35 is not conducive to getting the UK to agree to Munich