WI, wall of battleships at D-Day?
- Thread starter MatthewB
- Start date
The Italian Battleships were designed for the Mediterranean would they be able to handle the different sea conditions of the Atlantic and English Channel?
As someone with training and a decade of experience in this sort of thing; I can say its really transparent to the ships crew. For the fire control its a stationary target, & the ship is moving relatively slowly on a predictable course. Shooting at naval targets means both the ship and target are moving fast on unpredictable courses/changes. Its a much simpler gunnery solution firing at target on shore. The question of target location and knowledge of target type belongs to a HQ staff, not the ships crew, Ditto for selection of target, ammunition types, rate of fire, priority for targets. as with a single artillery battery all that is handled by observation teams and command staff.
Other considerations aside yes. It would be nice to have all those extra mega caliber cannon and magazines.
Heres the big problem. All these are resource hogs. Skilled manpower, material, fuel, funds, what have you. After the balnace sheet is run through eight and six inch gun cruisers are a better compromise
I love the mega guns, but the cost is a showstopper. HenceThe sad fact is it was more cost effective to reduce the Courbet to a hulk & breakwater, than to rehab her as a mobile shore bombardment battery.
Getting 136,000 men ashore in 18 hours, and five corps worth of assault equipment across five separate beaches. Meant delaying the invasion nearly a month, from early May to June, just to train the extra boat crews essential for the task. I used to correspond with a Royal Marine who's participation in Op NEPTUNE was as a boat crewman. The Brits placed more value on having him crew a boat that day than filling a Commando squad slot.
Yes, Its not a challenging summer voyage to the UK waters. Not like a winter patrol off Iceland or Newfoundland. The Med does have gales and such.
I cant recall if all the Monitors were there. This was part of their designed purpose.
HMS Centurion(1913) was sunk as a Blockship at Normandy.
HMS Iron Duke was sitting on a beach at Scapa.
HMS Erebus was off Omaha on D-Day doing bombardment.
HMS Roberts was off Sword on D-Day doing bombardment.
HMS Abercrombie was being repaired in Taranto after hitting a mine in late 1943. Unlucky ship, they repaired her then she struck another two mines off Malta.
HMS Iron Duke was sitting on a beach at Scapa.
HMS Erebus was off Omaha on D-Day doing bombardment.
HMS Roberts was off Sword on D-Day doing bombardment.
HMS Abercrombie was being repaired in Taranto after hitting a mine in late 1943. Unlucky ship, they repaired her then she struck another two mines off Malta.
MatthewB
Banned
Not the disarmed Centurion or Iron Duke. Nor the Erebus class, as I want 21 dreadnoughts.
This reminded me of one of my favourite books as a lad, HMS Saracen.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3253601-h-m-s-saracen
MatthewB
Banned
So, what is the impact of 21 battleships at Normandy? At an average of about nine guns per ship, each firing a 1,600 lb. or greater shell, each with ~130 lbs. of HE. That’s 189 guns, firing 302,000 lbs. of shells, and 24,700 lbs. of high explosive. At two rounds per minute, that’s a hell of a lot of ordnance inbound. Mind you, with magazines of about 100 rounds per gun, each battleship will be out of ammo in short order.
There are two phases to naval gun fire support of landing operations. The first phase is the pre landing preparatory fires, the second is the post landing support fires.
The first is characterized by not knowing precisely where all the targets are. You use air reconissance photos, information from spies, and the occasional beach reconissance, but its difficult to pin down to artillery accuracy the target locations. Camouflage, dummy positions, ect... make this difficult. Thus preparation fires are not as effective as the volumes of ammunition used typically suggest. The preparation fires on Betio island were seven times as long as @ Normandy. 30-40 minutes on OMAH & UTAH beaches vs 4+ hours on Betio island. The results were not much different, mainly because the fortifications were not precisely located on either site. A 15 cm HE projectile from a ships cannon has to hit directly a concrete bunker, a 20cm (8") can often cause some damage to concrete if it detonates less than a meter away. When in the 30cm + category You still have to have nearly a direct hit to damage concrete bunker. Log and sand bag emplacements require close in hits as well. At 10,000 yards range the Probable Error dispersion is that half your rounds aimed at a target will be 10+ meters distant from the mean point of impact. Bombardments vs Suspected targets on a beach can pin and stun defenders, but you are not going to get neutralizing levels of damage in 40 minutes or four hours without survey orders of accuracy in target location.
Post landing support fires have the benefit of observation teams, and the assault force locating the targets. In this case its possible to hit defense positions swiftly and accurately, with large caliber ammunition. For a enemy defense position of forty men, several MG and a AT gun or two, its transparent if they are hit by 12.7cm, 15cm, 20cm, or 38cm projectiles. They suffer heavy losses, are temporarily deaf, and stunned or have concussions. Precise target location and ability to adjust the fall of shot are the key here. Even ad hoc and untrained observation and correct are better than none. Off OMAHA Beach one of the destroyers sent in for assistance at 09:00 could not make radio contact with anyone ashore. The crew was able to spot a concealed bunker by observing the fall of shot from a tank on the beach. A volley of direct hits by the destroyers smaller caliber AP ammo destroyed the bunker. In most cases the destroyers were able to make radio contact after 09:00 when they closed in to the beach. Typically firing from 2000 yards and sometimes as close as 1200 yards their 5" AP ammo was more than adequate vs the German MG and cannon positions.
The key naval gunfire success is as with any fire support. Clear efficient communication with the supported units. The grunt has to be able to talk to the support weapons crew, the more directly the better.
Last edited:
they were battleships, not coastal defense vessels. The mediterranean is a sea too you know, may not be an ocean but you can't build vessels specifically for the mediterranean but not the ocean.
Weather in the Mediterranean can get very bad. One engagement between the British and Italians got interrupted by a near-hurricane strength storm which sank two Italian destroyers and nearly sank several British ones.
But Derfflinger was still afloat. Only ship to spend more time floating upside down than right side up.
I recently spent some time in Normandy and walked over Pointe de Hoc. Even 75 years later you can see the holes that the USS Texas made when it bombarded the place - and those were 'just' 14-inch guns. 21 battleships would have smoothed a few things out a bit, or rather have blown them to bits. Sadly given the logistics that have been mentioned so far on this thread there was no way to get those 21 battlewaggons there.
Quite probably. Italy doesn't seem to have sent any ship to the 1937 Coronation Review - relations with Britain were not at their best, then.