The fuck was the point of the Scharnhorst class battleship? 38k tons full load with 11" popguns.

The frick was the point of the Scharnhorst class battleship? 38k tons full load with 11" popguns. What was their use case? They got pummelled when they went toe-to-toe with actual battleships, even a WWI relic like HMS Renown caused both Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to skedaddle and Scharnhorst got absolutely raped by a KGV at the North Cape. Just seem like pointless sort of ships, too big for a heavy cruiser, too lightly-armed for a BB.

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  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Treaty. They were basically big under gunned battle cruisers.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      With kraut engineering those 11 inch popguns hold the longest hit record to this day, sniped some bong ship at 25.6 kilometers. Any more questions? Oh,

      Krauts also made the largest ship gun, Gerat 36 at 21 inch. Nobody gave a swimming frick about Washington treaty by 1930s.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        If it had been anything with a meaningful armour scheme the 11-inchers would've plinked off. Unfortunately, it so happened that it was Glorious there at that day.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        given the error margins in question its a draw with warspite, but warspites target was shooting back.

        If it had been anything with a meaningful armour scheme the 11-inchers would've plinked off. Unfortunately, it so happened that it was Glorious there at that day.

        thats why they ran from the Renown, at any range at which the 11inch guns could hurt her her 15 inch guns would be cleanly penetrating them and with a much much more effective bursting charge.

        ? The Bismarck was better than both

        bismarck was faster, but with worse armour and armament, and weight inefficient besides. a KGV was a match for Bismarck despite being thousands of tonnes heavier

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >KGV was a match for Bismarck
          Only fight with Hood and Prince of Wales showed otherwise.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            the PoW wassnt exactly worked up to full effectiveness at that battle, she literally still had builders on board in the turrets, and she still hurt bismarck much worse than she got hurt, with a higher % of shells on target, and two penetrating hits including one to the machine spaces.

            Yeah totally a fair fight.

            [...]

            Yeah, unlucky to be sent on an extremely risky mission. Unlucky with the RN finding it after losing contact. Unlucky with the torpedo jamming the rudder.

            [...]

            There are factors other than guns. Speed and range. But also Bismarck had great guns - accurate and fast ROF. I would take them over the Nelson's guns every time.

            [...]

            RN heavy ships in WWII were pretty shit.

            >RN heavy ships in WWII were pretty shit.
            the old ones hammered the italians pretty good, and ran off any scharnhorst and gniesnau, the newer ones blew the scharnhorst to hell and killed bismarck. the carriers shrugged off hits that would have killed anyone elses carriers, they did alright.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              That was because they were fighting shit opponents. Italy? Lol. And the advantages of the RN via quantity and home bases and air coverage were overwhelming. It was never a fair fight.

              PoW escaped because Bismarck targeted Hood first

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If Bismarck had targeted PoW first Bismark would have never made it out of the Strait, since the thing shooting back now has more (8 vs 6) guns, bigger (15" vs 16") guns, and a far more experienced crew. And that's being VERY generous about Bismark's ability to actually knock out Prince of Wales quickly considering the KGVs had some of the best protection of any battleship.

                Calling Bismark a good ship is like saying you're good at TTRPGs because you rolled a nat 20 exactly one time (and then still got the shit beat out of you and killed)

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >Bismarck rolls nat 20 exactly once
                >wehraboos: woulda coulda shoulda
                >Bismarck brought down by multiple hits
                >wehraboos: lucky hit, outnumbered, waaaah

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah anyone thinking the Bismarck could reliably win against Hood and PoW is moronic.

                It got lucky and the PoW rightly decided It alone wasn't fully battle ready, but if that golden bullet doesn't one hit kill the Hood Bismarck just will lose to two battleships easily.

                War is war and sometimes luck favours the inferior side.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                PoW had 14" guns. Still, I agree with you. Just wanted to get the facts correct.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                The Regia Marina did far more to impact the outcome of the war than the Kriegsmarine ever did. Not their fault Rommel screwed the entire Mediterranean theatre.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >Rommel screwed
                Rommel didn't do anything; the Regia Marina was simply outfought

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Not until after Rommel had effectively doomed the campaign. If Rommel had truly done nothing, he could have at least taken Malta and made life that much worse for the Royal Navy. Instead he ran out into the desert on a pointless chase after Alexander that he could never win. The only reason he was able to get away with that bullshit on any level was because the Italians were able to consistently get convoys through.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >Rommel had effectively doomed the campaign
                He did nearly save it; it was even more hilariously doomed with the Italian Army in charge.
                >he could have at least taken Malta
                Neither Germany nor Italy did it; they share the blame. Don't tell me Italy had zero independence of action to go after Malta themselves.
                >the Italians were able to consistently get convoys through
                Not enough though. The RN and RAF had this trick of picking out the tankers using Ultra intercepts and sinking them. Rommel was so starved for fuel Goering had to fly some over, which was ridiculously inefficient.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Saving a campaign by showing up and then immediately binning it with a dumb goose chase across the desert still counts as dooming the campaign.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >dumb goose chase across the desert
                He inflicted heavy casualties on the British
                >still counts as dooming the campaign
                what is this pasta-eating cope?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If we go by casualties, the South won the Civil War, and the British won the Revolutionary War. Casualties do not a campaign make. All Rommel had to do was sit still and make sure the Allies never had a secure enough position in Africa to try landing in Italy. If he'd stayed put, he'd have still been there in '45. Instead he chased the British well out of range of his own supply lines like an autistic puppy and killed his own force as an effective unit.

                The Italians at least had the excuse of just blatantly not being an industrialized nation, but Rommel has no excuse.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >If he'd stayed put, he'd have still been there in '45
                lol no way
                the Italian Navy had lost two-thirds of its fleet by the time the African campaign was over
                Rommel would have been starved out shortly after then even if all he'd done was hold

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >the Italian Navy had lost two-thirds of its fleet by the time the African campaign was over
                Lol, when Mussolini declared war he did it without ANY sort of warning to the Italian merchant fleet, that basically means a large portion of Italy's merchant shipping was in foreign ports ripe to be captured and/or interned

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Too bad I guess
                But I was talking about the Regia Marina's combat units, not their transports. The ship losses show that the Regia Marina put up a brave fight, they didn't shirk from the job. But they took heavy losses by the end of the African campaign and whether Rommel attacked or no, the convoys were unsustainable.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                U-boats were relevant for longer than Italy was in the war

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Relevant? Sure. Impactful? Not quite.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                There were hundreds of corvettes and hundreds of destroyer escorts/frigates built to deal with them, they were impactful.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Who the hell would a "good" opponent even be? Japan? Barring their first few suckerpunches their navy fought absolutely abysmally.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >PoW escaped because Bismarck targeted Hood first
                unlikely, if Bismarck hadnt eliminated Hood so quickly she would have had 8 15 inch guns shooting her as well as 6 14 inch guns, she actually came off the worst against PoW prior to the mechanical breakdowns in the turrets, add in the high likelihood of multiple 15 inch hits as well and bismarck would have been in very serious trouble.

                I suspect that you dont really appreciate just how well protected the KGVs were as a class, 14.7 inch belt that extended deep below the water line albeit tapering, a main armour deck of between 4.88 and 5.88 inches and all backed by inches of toughened steel

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I have literally no idea about battleships.
                What i do know is that Hitlers stupid autism for huge war machines was a significant factor in Germany losing the war.
                Bismarck fits right into that scheme and you're just coping? Why are you glorifying that Era? We're 1000 times better off without the nazis.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Prince of Wales showed otherwise.
            PoW scored a penetrating hit on Bismarck which went into the machine spaces, but the shell failed to detonate.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              actually it detonated, caused serious flooding and shut down the boiler room, i think you might be getting confused with the shell from bismarck that penetrated below the belt of PoW but didnt detonate, some wehraboos claim that hit as evidence the PoW would have been in trouble and had a narrow escape, but the reality is that if the shells fuse had functioned at all it would have detonated before reaching the hull given the depth and angle, as the KGVs had very deep armour belts. PoWs hit to Bismarck was shallower both in angle and in depth below the waterline because Bismarcks belt design was a ww1 relic and much shallower, the fuse on the PoWs shell worked as intended

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                PoW wouldn have been fricked if it stuck around. Maybe he's thinking of the hit to the compass room.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                PoW would have been in trouble from the turret malfunctions, but she didnt break of action because of anything bismarck did to her, she broke off because she had mechanical issues with the turrets when they were fixed she tried to reengage, Bismarck was in full flight and was faster so she never managed, but what wehraboos always try to slide past is the fact that she did try for more than 24 hours to reengage.

                Actually, they did that because scrapping or permanently docking the Revenge-class would have caused a small mutiny in the admiralty, but even Churchill knew the ships wouldn't last 10 minutes in actual combat, so convoy duty was the only option left. They were put on that gig long before the concept of German heavy raiders crossed anyone's mind.

                >but even Churchill knew the ships wouldn't last 10 minutes in actual combat, so convoy duty was the only option left
                10 minutes of actual combat against what? the R class could handle pretty much anything the italians had barring the littoros, and anything the germans had barring maybe Bismarck/tirpitz 6-8 15 inch guns and even by ww2 standards the british 15 inch was a good, accurate gun, and decent armour. The QEs were better, especially the more recently modernised ones but the R class were late ww1 designs and had been kept somewhat updated, they were more than capable of discouraging anything from attempting to engage them

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >KGV was a match for Bismarck despite being thousands of tonnes heavier
          Two KGVs had a go at Bismarck and achieved jack shit, granted one was brand new and her turrets were jamming left and right. It needed Rodney to trundle up.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            anon, the bongs themselves analysed the shell performance and concluded the KGVs' 14"ers outperformed Rodney

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              and the wreck has 14 in holes straight through the thickest parts of the armour. hell with broken turrets PoW still inflicted more damage on bismarck than she received in turn

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Nobody cared, but everyone had to pretend to care.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Germany was not a signatory of the Washington/ London Treaties, dumbass.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Technicaly what you say is corect. They where still limited by treaty
          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-German_Naval_Agreement

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Navweaps says the glorious hit was around 24.5 km, you misread 26500 yards into 26.5 km, a yard is shorter than a meter.

        The longest hit is actually Massachusetts on Jean Bart scored at 27 km, however Jean Bart wasn't a moving target but it did shoot back ineffectively.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >Massachusetts on Jean Bart
          >Massachusetts began firing at 07:04 at a range of 22,000 m

          the contest is between warspite and scharnhorst and given sea conditions etc it could go to either as the error bar is wider than the difference between the two, Warspite gets extra points for firing at a battleship that was firing back as well as moving

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >The longest hit is actually Massachusetts on Jean Bart scored at 27 km, however Jean Bart wasn't a moving target but it did shoot back ineffectively.
          If I remember correctly, information regarding the engagement between Massachusetts and Jean Bart and what ranges hits were scored at is wildly unreliable because not only was her fire control experiencing quite a few issues through the engagement but also contemporary action reports and logs from both sides are quite confused and contradictory, even amongst themselves and that reliable observation of hits at the extreme ranges was extremely difficult on the day and even more difficult to distinguish what was done by who and at what range.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >Massachusetts on Jean Bart
          >Massachusetts began firing at 07:04 at a range of 22,000 m

          the contest is between warspite and scharnhorst and given sea conditions etc it could go to either as the error bar is wider than the difference between the two, Warspite gets extra points for firing at a battleship that was firing back as well as moving

          Yamato had a hit at over 30k yards on White Plains with her first salvo at Samar. There's also a shorter range hit that's pretty impressive, Raimondo Montecuccoli hitting the British minesweeper Hebe at about 23k yards. Much smaller target, and Montecuccoli was firing at the very limit of her maximum range.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Yamato had a hit at over 30k yards on White Plains with her first salvo at Samar
            wasnt a direct hit, very close miss

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              It was a diving shell that worked exactly as intended and knocked out White Plain's starboard engines. That's a hit in my book.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Diving shells were intended to strike below the waterline. Yamato hit only water.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                That's only half correct. The mining effect of the shell exploding next to the hull was a known and intended effect just as much as actual penetrations below the belt armor (for targets that actually had armor). Yamato's shell in this case exploded at the turn of White Plains' bilge, with the mining effect causing severe damage. This is what the shell was designed to do. By your logic, this means any keelbreaker torpedo that explodes under a target and breaks its back can't be considered an actual hit, which is absurd.

                it seems like there were only a few battles and they were just bongs bullying even more subpar navies. compare savo island with cape matapan.

                There were plenty of fleet actions in the Med, most people just don't know about them because the RM and Med theatre is so overlooked compared to the Pacific and the Kriegsmarine's various death rides. Most European Axis fanboys are just wehraboos and know absolutely nothing about what the RM was doing to make Rommel's drive for the Suez a possibility to begin with. The Euro navies and Canada were fighting a convoy war for control of the Atlantic and Mediterranean sea lanes, which is about as Mahanian as one can get.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Wtf is White Plains for a shit name. It's just a boring suburbs where nothing happens. It's like naming a carrier New Rochelle or Edison, NJ.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Many of the class were named after battles.
              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_White_Plains

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Are you a natural moron? Or did you have to work at it?

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Unconfirmed

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              No, we're pretty sure it was Yamato. The damage was way out of proportion from what would be expected from an 8" shell, so it wasn't any of the cruisers. Nagato opened fire at the same time, but was shooting Type 3 shells for her first couple salvos, not the AP diving shells. She was also with Yamato, so even if it was her first AP salvo that hit White Plains, that's still a hit at over 30k yards. She didn't record any hits on the carriers. Kongo and Haruna also opened fire at the same time, but likewise did not record any hits on the carriers.

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They were designed so the main armament could be replaced later by 15" guns, it just never happened

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Yet despite all that, they were Germany's best performing warships. Funny how sometimes stats don't predict actuality.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Best performing? Compared to what? German subs were their best performing platform. But that wasn't glorious so instead they went with Plan Z.

      Why does Z attach itself to abject failure again and again?

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        b-but it's lemon scented

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        The obvious answer is that there were 25 better plans.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Plan Z never happened moron.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          not for lack of trying

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            VGH! What could have been!

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              More wrecks lost to the royal navy in the north sea!

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'll have you know those wrecks tied down twenty torpedoes and four hundred cannon shells that could have been used at El Alamein!

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      TMI would say that Admiral Scheer was the best performing KM warship. Tirpitz did fine duty tying up resources. Bismarck was unlucky + bad leadership.

      The ships were fine; it came down to use

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Bismarck was unlucky
        How so? It went raiding in the Atlantic in the face of a vastly superior force. It was idiotic doctrine. It had to be 100% lucky 100% of the time to survive that.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >It went raiding in the Atlantic in the face of a vastly superior force.
          The entire point of raiding is to AVOID the vastly superior force, and starve the superior force of supply.

          >It was idiotic doctrine.
          Compared, of course, to a doctrine in your head 80 years later, requiring resources Germany didn't possess?

          Rodney effectively killed Bismarck with its first 16" salvo.

          What the frick are you talking about? Rodney had been firing for 15 minutes before making the hit you're referring to.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        still sunk the (albeit outdated) pride of his majesty's navy with one hit before scuttling

        Scoring a single victory out of sheer luck, not skill or quality, on a practically outdated and under-armored ship, as you said, is almost less than nothing.
        In fact, I'd have more respect for the Bismark if she had never sunk anything at all. The "potential" would remain unknown and open to speculation. But the fact that people cling to the one sinking, which might've been achieved by nearly anyone with similarly good fortune, is nigh-pathetic.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Meant for

          ? The Bismarck was better than both

          (me)

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Germany's best performing warships
      Being the shiniest turd isn't much of a brag.

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    You can find entire pages detailing the development history of the Scharnhorst but you chose to shitpost instead,

  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Germany forgot how to make proper battleships after Versailles, and never re-learned. Hell - they barely knew how beforehand.

    Compare a SoDak or Nelson to the German "pinnacle" Bismark and it's just fricking laughable how bad they were at it.

    They should have stuck with their submariners but nope. Nope, they HAD to pretend they were a major naval power by trying to reenact the high seas fleet failure as best they could

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      ? The Bismarck was better than both

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Rodney effectively killed Bismarck with its first 16" salvo.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Yeah totally a fair fight.

          >Bismarck was unlucky
          How so? It went raiding in the Atlantic in the face of a vastly superior force. It was idiotic doctrine. It had to be 100% lucky 100% of the time to survive that.

          Yeah, unlucky to be sent on an extremely risky mission. Unlucky with the RN finding it after losing contact. Unlucky with the torpedo jamming the rudder.

          Better than both? 8 15" guns on Bismark vs 9 on SoDak and Nelson class. All or nothing, modern sloped armor schemes on SoDak/Nelson vs obsolete turtleback. And yet Bismark was over 50 tons. The treaty compromise BB classes were universally superior to the 50 tun fat, undergunned glory of the Kriegsmarine.

          Where do you get your history from? Sabaton songs?

          There are factors other than guns. Speed and range. But also Bismarck had great guns - accurate and fast ROF. I would take them over the Nelson's guns every time.

          Didnt the Frogs have some light battleships like the Richelieu?

          In any case the Scharnhorst Class was supposed to get heavier guns but the German armament industry whiffed on that.

          Generally German naval industry except for subs sucked, as was mentioned the Bismarck was a horrifically bad design. It was capable but the same capability other countries could get out of a 20% cheaper ship. For the price of the Bismarcks and Scharnhorsts the bongs could get 4 real full size battleships and would rape the Germans.

          RN heavy ships in WWII were pretty shit.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Yeah totally a fair fight.

            skill issue. If your battleship can be crippled by a single squadron of biplanes then it has no business going to sea at all in 1940

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Bismarck had great guns - accurate and fast ROF
            >great guns
            her average ROF at Denmark strait was around a minute and a half btw, real world factors matter.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Yeah totally a fair fight.
            the frick has "fair" got to do with it?

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >Yeah totally a fair fight.
            If you can’t field a surface fleet to screen your battleship, why the frick are you fielding a battleship?

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Better than both? 8 15" guns on Bismark vs 9 on SoDak and Nelson class. All or nothing, modern sloped armor schemes on SoDak/Nelson vs obsolete turtleback. And yet Bismark was over 50 tons. The treaty compromise BB classes were universally superior to the 50 tun fat, undergunned glory of the Kriegsmarine.

        Where do you get your history from? Sabaton songs?

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Also 16" vs 15".

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Oops yeah, forgot to note that.
            9x16" on both the treaty ships.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              The Nelsons have the notable disadvantage of being 7 knots slower than Bismarck, though. Apart from that it's generally superior.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Nelson had 23 knots. Speed doesn't come cheap. (planes speed is cheating)

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            They were built in response to the Dunkerque class from France, which in turn had been built in response to Germany's Deutschland class. Germany wasn't really trying to build anything to fight the RN with, at least at that point. There just wasn't any way for them to outbuild the RN. It was actually a funny little 3-way arms race, the Italians didn't want to be left out either. They built the Littorios in response to the Dunkerques, the French built the Richelieus in response to the Littorios, then planned additional modified Richelieus in response to the Bismarcks.

            This. If a Bismarck actually went into gun range of a Nelson I'd give Nelson the advantage, but given the realities of naval combat I can't see the commander of a Bismarck class ever wanting to be in range of a Nelson. Even if he wins, he's probably fricked up and not making it past the rest of the RN back to port.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >"Bismarck was better"
        >Fights 1 (one) battle against enemy warships
        >Sinks

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          still sunk the (albeit outdated) pride of his majesty's navy with one hit before scuttling

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >pride of his majesty's navy
            Bismarck never sank HMS King George V

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Just because King George V was named for the homosexual ass king didnt mean it was regarded higher than HMS Hood at the time

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >latest battleship, all mod cons, launched last year, or 20 year old battlecruiser, gee I wonder which was the pride of the Royal Navy

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If you can site some sources that she was held in higher regard than the Hood then Ill retract my post. From what Ive read Hood was held in higher regard. King George V was still a Nancy wiener gobbler tho Ill go to my grave on that.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Hood was overdue for a fricking planned modernisation, holy shit, and the KGV was the RN's most modern and best battleship afloat

                this is like saying "nuh uh, everyone loves the F-4, cite your source that F-15EX is better"

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                so you cant

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                are you moronic?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                are you gay?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                He's still baiting you

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                To be fair, “Everyone loves the F-4” and “The F-15EX is better” aren’t contradictory statements.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                "Held in higher regard" doesn't mean it necessarily was a better ship, anon

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >From what Ive read Hood was held in higher regard.
                They paraded Hood around during the interwar years but not because it was the best boat. It was very large by length, nice visuals, and the more modern boats like Rodney were fricking disgusting looking. KGV were obviously not available for those parades since they hadn't been built or even designed.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                even Renown was more modernised than Hood at the time of its sinking

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Raeder was at Jutland and never stopped seething about running away

      That was because they were fighting shit opponents. Italy? Lol. And the advantages of the RN via quantity and home bases and air coverage were overwhelming. It was never a fair fight.

      PoW escaped because Bismarck targeted Hood first

      cope

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      the german navy never knew how to use battleships in the first place, their most effective vessels were u-boots and commerce raiders during both world wars. The fact that Bismacrk destroyed its own targeting system from its own fire, and Tirpitz just sat in port until she got sunk is laughable. The U-boots, commerce raiders and to small extent schnell boots are a different story

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        I like you. Let's head out to a bar, have some drinks and muse about the ludicrous idiocy of Plan Z and German naval aspirations.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Im more knowledgeable about Germany's disastrously land operations and its high points, but Id totally get drunk with you and talk about the Kreigsmarine for a few hours and bounce some ideas.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        So the Bismark-class was the Kuznetsov-class of its time?

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        I like you. Let's head out to a bar, have some drinks and muse about the ludicrous idiocy of Plan Z and German naval aspirations.

        Im more knowledgeable about Germany's disastrously land operations and its high points, but Id totally get drunk with you and talk about the Kreigsmarine for a few hours and bounce some ideas.

        In case you don't find a bar near you, i know the perfect place where people like you can exchange ideas, it's a website called reddit.

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    German WW2 ship design was horrid, huge, under gunned, negligible AA.

    Germany didn't by WW2 standards have any battleships, they had oversized battlecruisers with terrible AA

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    But what was the Scharnhorst class supposed to fight when it was designed? Can't catch cruisers and battleships are out of its class. I just don't get the design philosophy. I suppose it's a good job they didn't put those resources into actually useful vessels.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Didnt the Frogs have some light battleships like the Richelieu?

      In any case the Scharnhorst Class was supposed to get heavier guns but the German armament industry whiffed on that.

      Generally German naval industry except for subs sucked, as was mentioned the Bismarck was a horrifically bad design. It was capable but the same capability other countries could get out of a 20% cheaper ship. For the price of the Bismarcks and Scharnhorsts the bongs could get 4 real full size battleships and would rape the Germans.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >German naval industry except for subs sucked
        Ironically, their main sub class during the war, the Type VII, was just an enlarged version of the Type UB III submarine, build near the end of WW1.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Have to correct myself, the light frogs were the Dunquerque class or whatever, frick frog ribbits. Scharnhorsts could fight them (while being much heavier) so i guess they're not completely useless.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Fun fact: Richelieu had the largest guns in a quad turret: FOUR FRICKING 381MM

        >German naval industry except for subs sucked
        Ironically, their main sub class during the war, the Type VII, was just an enlarged version of the Type UB III submarine, build near the end of WW1.

        Fun fact: Type vii is the most produced sub in history: 703 SUBMARINES
        Thanks for coming to my autistic ted talk. A comfy break from all the shitslinging slav threads.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Imagine having to go with twins instead of triple turrets because of Krupp breach autism.

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    She was supposed to have 6x15''. But they had not enough 15''. Turrets went to Bismark and Tirpitz so Scharnhorst stuck with the placeholder 11''

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They were poor.

  10. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    German botes were shit but it was to be expected from a country that never had a naval tradition and then was banned from having a navy for a decade.

  11. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >German navy so bad Tirpitz spends it's life failing to hide in Fjords and serving as high altitude bombing practice.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Unironically the best performing German warship. As long as it was alive it tied down significant Bong ships that could wreck Mediterranean or Pacific otherwise.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >it tied down significant Bong ships
        Hardly.
        There wasn't actually all that much for British BBs to do. So much so that most of the Revenge class spent most of their time on the Africa-India run. There wasn't enough British logistics ships to project into the Pacific, and the Japs didn't repeat the Indian Ocean raid (for lack of carriers), and the Mediterranean Fleet was well-manned.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >So much so that most of the Revenge class spent most of their time on the Africa-India run.
          They did this to protect the convoys from long range raiders dummy. Their mere existence was enough to tie them down.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >long range raiders
            May we see them?
            >tie them down
            Ah yes, the standard KM / RM cope for skulking in their ports all the war through. You're not "tying down" shit when the whole world is sailing happily around preparing for invasion unmolested.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >Ah yes, the standard KM / RM cope for skulking in their ports all the war through. You're not "tying down" shit when the whole world is sailing happily around preparing for invasion unmolested.
              What even are uboats?
              >long range raiders
              >May we see them?
              Yes you may. Google is waiting for you my friend.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Actually, they did that because scrapping or permanently docking the Revenge-class would have caused a small mutiny in the admiralty, but even Churchill knew the ships wouldn't last 10 minutes in actual combat, so convoy duty was the only option left. They were put on that gig long before the concept of German heavy raiders crossed anyone's mind.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >They were put on that gig long before the concept of German heavy raiders crossed anyone's mind.
              You are aware the first world war happened so everyone expected this right?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Everyone expected a country with no foreign stations and a smaller navy than Italy to get heavy ships out into the ocean past by far the most powerful surface Navy in the world?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Yes, they did it to not inconsiderable effect in the first world war, and they did do it again in the second, as anyone who was paying attention predicted.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                During the first world war Germany actually had foreign stations. During the Second nothing should have been able to leave the North Sea and the fact that Spee did has always been one of the RN's greatest embarrassments, second only to then falling to sink it and nearly losing two cruisers doing so.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >taking on supplies at neutral ports is impossible

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Didn't Graf Spee and other raiders get sent out before the war started?

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              The Revenges were a key part of Somerville's plan to defeat the Japs if they attacked India. They covered the African convoys in case the Japs slipped surface raiders through, while waiting to be rallied against a major Jap fleet.

              >Ah yes, the standard KM / RM cope for skulking in their ports all the war through. You're not "tying down" shit when the whole world is sailing happily around preparing for invasion unmolested.
              What even are uboats?
              >long range raiders
              >May we see them?
              Yes you may. Google is waiting for you my friend.

              >uboats
              What even is following the discussion?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                You said they were happily sailing around unmolested, that's just pure moronation.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                It's no worse an exaggeration than claiming the Allied navies were ever "tied down"

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >It's no worse an exaggeration than claiming the Allied navies were ever "tied down"
                What do you think tied down means anon?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                To significantly hinder and curtail naval operations, obviously
                Nothing of the sort happened; the Allies continued building up, supply lines were never catastrophically affected, and the amphibious landings got on well with hardly a hitch on the naval side

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                To have a ship tied down means its not available for other duties. Most of the allied navy was tied down with convoy escort to ensure the supply lines stayed open, ships that would have been available for offensive actions or other duties if that was not necessary.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >ships that would have been available for offensive actions or other duties
                like what?
                there were no battleships to fight on account of Axis battleships hiding cowardly in ports.
                there were no amphibious operations to support as the Army wasn't ready and neither were the landing ships.
                the Kido Butai lasted a grand total of six months before being sent to the bottom.

                what the frick was more "freed up" battleships supposed to do?
                they weren't "tied down", they were doing their job - countering Axis battleships.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Not that guy but Tirpitz was considered a serious threat to the Soviet convoys..."From early 1942 Tirpitz posed a significant threat to the Allied convoys transporting supplies through the Norwegian Sea to the Soviet Union. Operating from fjords on the Norwegian coast, the battleship was capable of overwhelming the close-escort forces assigned to the Arctic convoys or breaking out into the North Atlantic. To counter this threat, the Allies were forced to keep a powerful force of warships with the British Home Fleet, and capital ships accompanied most convoys part of the way to the Soviet Union."

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I don't get it. So Britain's huge navy had to do escort duty during a war instead of....? It's not like there was a German navy they should've been out fighting.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                If there was no threat of heavy German naval units, the convoys could have been escorted by nothing larger than destroyers and frigates along with some older converted AA light cruisers. The heavier, more modern (in some cases) RN units could have been used elsewhere.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah well if there was no Germany army the Brits could've just rode their bicycles to Berlin. What the frick is even the point of this moronic tie-down cope? Being forced to hide because you are weak is not tying anything down. You are the one being tied down. While the Brits were "forced" to escort their convoys carrying massive amounts of supplies all over the world, Germany was literally starving.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >What the frick is even the point of this moronic tie-down cope?

                Why are you arguing a historical fact? Have you ever done any reading on the Artic convoys? That's was reality for quite a long time, when the Tirpitz was finally sunk by 9 and 617 Squadrons RAF there was a collective sigh of relief in RN HQ that the last major threat was gone and heavy forces used on the convoy routes could be redeployed. Take a look at this major disaster that occurred by the mere threat that the Tirpitz had sortied....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convoy_PQ_17

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >there was a collective sigh of relief
                you witnessed it?
                >redeployed
                to deal with what threat now?

                this is like saying Japan successfully "tied down" two atomic bombs, and after Nagasaki the atomic bombs could be redeployed...

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'm pretty sure by now that you've done a hell of a lot of vidya and precious little reading.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >STILL can't give an example

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                NTA but I think they would have liked every set of big guns they could get for the coming invasion of Japan.
                Also needing to maintain such large naval forces to counter single large combatants in the first place is a setback; every sailor on a battleship isn't an infantryman on the frontline.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >NTA but I think they would have liked every set of big guns they could get for the coming invasion of Japan.
                They did start forming the large British Pacific Fleet in late 1944.

                Who the hell would a "good" opponent even be? Japan? Barring their first few suckerpunches their navy fought absolutely abysmally.

                >Barring their first few suckerpunches their navy fought absolutely abysmally.
                Wouldn't call all the battles at that time sucker punches, and later on there was an increasing gap in the tech used on their ships.

                >all those German naval forces all over the place
                ...such as?

                Read the post before that one.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                You cannot be that stupid anon. I know sarcasm is hard for autists, but really...

                Sorry, got mixed up at which of you was based and who was moronic

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                The IJN did keep coming up with new tricks. Their issue was more that the US was pumping out ships and improving their AA, fighter direction, and overall situational awareness in their command and control by leaps and bounds from the dark days of 1942. By mid-1943, the USN was an unstoppable force. Despite that, they stayed dangerous even if they never had a prayer of actually stopping the USN after Watchtower. Things like night-time torpedo attacks by land-based bombers, dropping RAM to distract the CAP and get them out of position for a kamikaze strike, and so on. The IJN air wing is really where the innovation was happening, because the conventional navy just couldn't do much against the odds they were up against. Kamikaze and conventional strike tactics were constantly evolving up until the end of the war to get aircraft through the CAP and escort screens. Trent Telenko goes into a lot of it in the Bilgepumps podcast and in several WW2TV episodes.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I was just thinking in capability of ships changing with the new radar, fcs, better anti aircraft guns, vt fuses and wide usage of dual purpose guns. I didn't do a good job highlight the difference in capabilities by excluding production capacity. Wasn't trying to go into doctrine, although its heavily related.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                They weren't far behind the US in most terms, it's just that every disadvantage is magnified by the disparity in production. They had shipboard radar in 1942, and Shokaku was saved by hers at Eastern Solomons. In 1944 Atago got the first PPI scopes in IJN as opposed to the old A scopes, and also had the first implementation of a CIC on the Japanese side. Their only real failing radar-wise was not being able to implement a completely automatic firing solution from their radars and directors. For dual purpose guns, the 10cm gun was excellent it it was the primary armament for the Akizuki class. As with all things though, they couldn't produce enough of the ships fast enough to make a difference. It's mind-boggling how much a difference only 1-2 years of progress meant in those fields.

                Providing the thread is still alive by the time I get home I'll try and give you a more detailed answer but the long and short of it is that Admiral Iachino dominated the post-war narrative that ended up making its way into sources translated to other languages that blew the quality issues completely out of proportion as a scapegoat to justify his actions at Cape Matapan which ended up with the 1st Division (if I remember correctly) getting completely decimated

                I'm not sure I've ever heard shell quality issues in combination with Matapan. Iachino didn't know the Brits had radar, and wasn't expecting a night engagement because of that. From what I've heard, the Italians were more focused on implementing a secure Talk-Between-Ships system in the pre-war period.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >first implementation of a CIC
                I'd love to see what that setup actually was

                bear in mind an officer reading two maps balanced on his knees is one early implementation of CIC

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I haven't seen any actual diagrams or images of it. I've heard both Jon Parshall and Trent Telenko mention it though, and I doubt they'd even call it a CIC if they knew it was just a lone officer assigned to keep tabs on ship locations. It is part of why Atago was Kurita's flagship rather than Yamato or one of the other battleships. Atago was the most advanced vessel in the IJN at that point in terms of radar equipment, so as a commander he'd have the best situational awareness from her.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >I doubt they'd even call it a CIC if they knew it was just a lone officer assigned to keep tabs on ship locations
                I gave that example for good reason: it was the genesis of CIC in USN ships

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                the may we see it anon got real quiet after this one.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                What was the point in replying to ignorant trolls?

                As for the BPF, they were hardly delayed by Tirpitz: the final Burma campaign had not yet even begun when Tirpitz was sunk, and Operation Coronet was slated for 1946.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                "Britain had to allocate naval resources to blockade my shitty fleet into port while enjoying the benefits of unfettered global trade" is 230 year old Napoleonic cope. As you may recall, the number of British battleships required for the invasion of Japan was zero.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >NTA but I think they would have liked every set of big guns they could get for the coming invasion of Japan.
                This is...moronic. The planning for Downfall didn't even begin until well after the Tirpitz was sunk. And the planned OoB included only 20 battleships, which was well fewer than what was available.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >me very smart, me read many, you dumb
                may we see it
                >uh um
                may we see it
                >uh um
                may we see it
                >you google, me not answer

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >redeployed
                >to deal with what threat now?
                When it was sunk, nothing because by late 1944 the Mediterranean was settled, the U-boats were mostly sunk, and a Japanese action against India was off the table.
                In earlier years the Americans probably would have loved more help against the Japanese and the RN would have had more forces to move the Mediterranean from "contested" to "controlled".
                The main reason they wanted her sunk is that Artic convoys often had to move with heavier, slower escorts if there was risk Tirpitz or the other German heavies could sortie, giving U-boats more time to locate and attack them.
                At the time of sinking, U-boats weren't much threat, so all they did was save fuel costs by not sending capitals on convoy duty. Counting beans isn't glamorous but it does matter.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >move the Mediterranean from "contested" to "controlled"
                A couple more battleships wouldn't have made any difference, Cunningham was already sorting up and down the Med looking for a fight and finding none. The other action was mainly convoy escort and interceptions which was a task for small units and subs.

                >In earlier years the Americans probably would have loved more help against the Japanese
                Except ol Ernie so hated the idea of a bong ship fricking up an all-American show that when the British loaned him a carrier, albeit briefly, it had to be codenamed USS Robin Also, again here the action was CVs not BBs. And there was insufficient logistic capability to project that far, and insufficient resources to build said capability.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                When you refuse to listen to the experiences of others and accept their offered support, handing a second happy time to the German submariners on a silver platter and causing the loss of hundreds of ships, thousands of lives and enormous amounts of supplies. Just another King moment.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Mediterranean was "contested" because the RM stayed holed up just like the Tirpitz.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                The RM was escorting Axis convoys to Africa and attacking Allied convoys to Malta and Egypt up to 1943. By that point, there were so many Allied aircraft in North Africa that resupplying Rommel was impossible. And not to mention futile anyways, given the new balance of forces after the Torch landings and Monty picking Rommel apart on his retreat back to Tunisia. Without the RM, Rommel would never have made it to the Egyptian border to begin with.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >To counter this threat, the Allies were forced to keep a powerful force of warships with the British Home Fleet
                well, was this significant enough a number of warships that they hindered operations in other areas?
                it was not
                in fact once the Japanese and Italian threat had been dealt with, there was in fact excess capacity despite Tirpitz still existing, and the R-class battleships could be phased out

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >there was in fact excess capacity despite Tirpitz still existing, and the R-class battleships could be phased out

                The KGV class battleships were used almost exclusively on the Soviet Convoy routes. Until the Tirpitz was sunk they couldn't be redeployed in any numbers. Looking at it from another perspective, there was Operation Mascot in July 1944.
                It was an unsuccessful carrier strike on the Tirpitz which used 3 Aircraft Carriers, 2 Battleships (both KGV), 2 Heavy Cruisers, 2 Light Cruisers, 13 Destroyers, and 3 Frigates.

                That's what "tying down" Royal Navy forces means.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >they couldn't be redeployed in any numbers
                yeah, um, to do what?
                >July 1944
                yeah, and what other grand fleet action had they been "tied down" from committing?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                To be used more profitably in other areas the RN deemed fit. Google enough and you can find HQ notes regarding deployments of various ships during that time span.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >still can't give an example

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                The RN really could've used some battleships to fight all those German naval forces all over the place. Too bad the Tirpitz was tying them all down.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >all those German naval forces all over the place
                ...such as?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                You cannot be that stupid anon. I know sarcasm is hard for autists, but really...

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >well, was this significant enough a number of warships that they hindered operations in other areas?
                It actually was. USS Iowa stuck around there for several months instead of heading to the Pacific until the Americans decided Tirpitz wasn't work keeping a battleship around to counter.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Iowa staying in Europe for a couple of months more had no strategic impact on the Pacific though. Battleships were functionally relegated to acting as shore bombardment platforms and AA barges by then and those roles were filled just fine by aircraft and smaller ships.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'm gonna need a source and a half for that, the Japa were absofrickinglutely not something the Revenges could fight. Sending a Queen Elizabeth there was already considered a desperation move.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Somerville's fleet waiting for the Kido Butai was not much worse than Fletcher's at Midway, which had no battleships whether old or new. The British heavily reinforced India following the Ceylon raid with Hurricanes and Beauforts, and more carriers and battleships were on the way, but then Midway happened and that was that.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                I'm sorry, but what the actual frick are you smoking? Fletcher's fleet had three of the largest aircraft carriers in the world up against four smaller Japanese carriers. Somerville had HMS Hermes against basically every operational fleet aircraft carrier Japan ever fielded. If Somerville had ever engaged the Japanese he would have lost every ship he had. Adding the Revenge-class ships to that would have only furthered the death toll for no real gain.

                The Revenge-class ships were consigned as obsolete before the war had even broken out. The Queen Elizabeths had only been saved from the same fate by being 4 knots faster and having already been invested in with the modernization programmes of the interwar period.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Sommerville had planes with airborne radar. They could attack at night.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >he doesn't realize they would have been within range of aircraft from shore

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >Somerville had HMS Hermes
                and Formidable and Indomitable.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Imagine being the crew of the Tirpitz and you wake up each day for the mission of avoiding bombs all day in a small pond.

  12. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    This isn't to argue your main point but what happened with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau vs Renown was more complicated than the two BBs simply having small guns for their size and type, quoting navweaps:
    At the battle off the Norwegian coast, did the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau perform well? The answer is no.

    The situation facing the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau was nearly textbook. In theory, this sortie should have turned out to be a "piece of cake," a clear victory within a couple of minutes. Look at the conditions:

    1.Good visibility
    2.Normal sea conditions for that region
    3.18 large caliber guns vs. 6 on the Renown
    4Distance to opponent about 150 hm (16,400 yards), perfect for main guns and secondaries.
    5.The German shells could easily defeat the Renown's armor at this range.
    6.A chance for "crossing the T."

    Instead of that, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau bugged out, showing good shooting only in the first few minutes of the engagement. Everything after changing course to 70° was a slow, but constant waste of ammo. The longer the battle lasted, the worst became the shooting.

    http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-044.php

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      The previous two paragraphs give more context:
      One can clearly see the influence of the "fleet" in the designs of Hipper, the Scharnhorst and the Bismarck classes of warships. Although the Battle of Jutland proved that the shooting of German ships was quite adequate, the lack of a coordinated, centralized fire-control such as the British had was well known by the "fleet" after this sortie. Result: The Fleet wanted the a Fire Control System that would be the best, the utmost, the totally superior Fire Control System. So, the MA spent a great deal of time and resources into developing such a system. The end result was an overly complex, very heavy Firing director and very sensitive machinery. This development process continued until the point of chaos was reached. For example, the new battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were found to be incapable of shooting their main guns in the autumn 1939. This could only be corrected after 22,000 yards (!) of useless electrical wires were removed and major modifications were made to the Fire Control circuits and mechanisms.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        They had absolutely no idea what they were doing:
        A second example would be the anti-aircraft FCS on the Bismarck. The company that built the computers for this proudly announced that only a dozen of their 20,000 employees were capable of assembling this machine. When you think about this, there is really no better way to express the fact that this inherently means that the computer won't work properly in actual service. All in all, they (the fleet branch) wanted every thing perrrrfecccct. But if you do it, you often are 10 years too late. The DP-gun wasn't produced because the fleet branch wanted them stabilized in three dimensions - why not start with a 2-d stabilized version and see how it works? The Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were outfitted with every gun and FC gimmick (useful or not) that was available. Result: An overloaded design. A few tons more and the main armor belt would loose its function as it would wind up below the waterline. Likewise, the upperworks of the superstructures were the favorite playground of every ambitious technical naval officer who was in command in the MA - I'm sure you noticed the different deck layout for each of these two ships. This is the reason for it. Remember - not technical qualification, but rank is required for all decisions.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          This reminds me of Parshall's "Mines of Moria" presentation on German tank production.

  13. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Roma was a better BB than Bismark. Christ, where do you fricking morons come from?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Barring their low barrel life and shell quality issues the main battery was impressive, their secondaries I can't really say, not to mention the 90mm guns having turret reliability issues (though it's not like the German 105s were much different funnily enough for the same reasons), armor/protection wise it's difficult to say with some saying the Pugliese system was either good or bad, I remember reading somewhere that they did something weird throughout the ship regarding decapping shells. Speed was alright, range was pretty bad.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >shell quality issues
        Which is mostly debunked now as post-war cope from one man to mask his own frickups

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Clarify please? This topic is of interest to me.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Providing the thread is still alive by the time I get home I'll try and give you a more detailed answer but the long and short of it is that Admiral Iachino dominated the post-war narrative that ended up making its way into sources translated to other languages that blew the quality issues completely out of proportion as a scapegoat to justify his actions at Cape Matapan which ended up with the 1st Division (if I remember correctly) getting completely decimated

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >(if I remember correctly) getting completely decimated
              decimated would be a understatement, the entire division was sunk with all hands 3 heavy cruisers destroyed in 5 minutes, for context the RN lost 4 heavy cruisers during the entire course of the war

  14. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Both ships were originally meant to be heavy cruisers.After being redesigned as battleships they were meant to have 38cm guns but they weren‘t available so both ships were build with the same 28cm cannons used by the Deutschland class heavy cruisers.

  15. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >ITT: Italians seethe about Rommel despite failing hilariously themselves to do one tenth of what he did

  16. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    You boat nerds talk about these incidents like you were there. You should make memes about them instead of arguing.

  17. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >The frick was the point of the Scharnhorst class battleship?
    She's pretty.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >She's pretty.
      pretty useless

  18. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    You got baited by the Italyboo

  19. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >it took four of you to choke me
    >four policemen that could've been deployed elsewhere

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >50 battleships are tied down by 13

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >KM using Black person tactics
        >is worst performing branch
        quelle surprise

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      "Actually I scuttled myself via Fentanyl not your knee on my neck"

  20. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Scharnhorst? more like Schwartzehorst

  21. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Perfidious Albion tricked Hitler into pursuing battleships and carriers instead of focusing on cruiser and submarines.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Perfidious Albion tricked Hitler into pursuing battleships and carriers instead of focusing on cruiser and submarines.

  22. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Beating the white supremacists is the final cope of the Anglo before they get completely raped by pakis. Like congratulations, you were the most cucked nation in the world at that time because you died for the USA and the Soviet Union.

  23. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    The point of the Scharnhorst class "battleship" (more like "battlecruiser") was to be converted into aircraft carriers shortly after their hulls were laid down. You see, a couple of these holding down two points of a triangle in the Atlantic (the third being somewhere on the coast of Africa or France), they could completely dominate the Atlantic airspace, providing the (possibly reduced in size to provide resources to other avenues of war expenditure) U-Boat fleet with timely & accurate air reconnaissance plus counter-anti-submarine operations. Imagine if aircraft carrier doctrine had been employed in support of the German U-Boat campaign to utterly own the seas?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Did they think the British fleet would somehow be unable to attack those carriers?

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Yeah, if the Kriegsmarine un Luftwaffe managed to maintain unrivaled air superiority. Imagine putting to sea in an aircraft carrier capable of coordinated air & sea operations, along with a couple of long-duration seaplanes for counter-counter-counter-submarine warfare and to serve as primitive AWACS. Imagine these carriers having the SPEED needed to stay the frick away from anything afloat, and the accurate, timely intel to make the right maneuvers. Imagine them launching waves of planes while your local wolfpack converges simultaneously on approaching enemy warships. Imagine shutting down all enemy transoceanic shipping and air freight for as long as you've got fuel.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >The point of the Scharnhorst class "battleship" (more like "battlecruiser") was to be converted into aircraft carriers shortly after their hulls were laid down.
      Source: it was once revealed to me in a dream. It wasn't long after Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were laid down that work was started on the first of two purpose built aircraft carriers.

  24. 11 months ago
    Anonymous
  25. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Bismark vs north carolina class

    who wins.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Can the 15 inch guns even pen the NC class? It's armored against its own guns, right?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Can the 15 inch guns even pen the NC class? It's armored against its own guns, right?

      the North Carolinas were a bit thin on the belt
      I'd give this one to Bismarck, actually

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        It really only goes Bismarck's way if Bismarck gets a very lucky hit out the gate. The North Carolinas have more firepower and a far more reliable fire control system.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      U.S Super heavy AP shells would royally frick the Bismarck up.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >speed
      bismark is 1kt faster, not enough to give a tactical advantage, but it means that the NC cant run if things go south

      >guns
      NC has 9x 16in guns, bismark has 8x 15in guns
      effectively identical performance, the slightly faster firing speed on the 15in cancelling out the extra gun on the NC
      16in is a beefier shell, but 15in has more muzzle velocity, leading to comparable effective range and penetration

      >armor
      NC has all-or-nothing armor with a 12in thick main armored belt and only 6 or even 3in on less critical parts
      bismark has a more traditional tapering armor thickness with a 12in armored belt that slowly thins out to 8.5in
      so NC has a wider portion protected by the thick 12in belt while bismark has more armored sections in general

      >FCS
      NC is the undisputed king here
      radar blows bismarks out the water with centimetric search/track radar attached to the mk1 ballistic computer

      bismark still only used decimetric search radar only capable of ranging
      and lower output meant shorter radar range too
      bismark fire-control computer could only really assist gunners in plotting but it couldnt actually direct the guns or even form a full solution, even the yamatos computer was better

  26. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I literally never heard of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau being planned as a conversion. They were supposed to be upgunned later.

  27. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They are a continuation of the German battlecruiser concept from before ww1

  28. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Why were the Scharnhorsts so shit for being almost 40k ton when other countries' 40k ton battleships were actually pretty good?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      German shipbuilding was effectively nonexistent between 1918 and 1935, save for like a handful of light cruisers. So Scharnhorst, Tirpitz et al are actually late 1920s ships built about a decade late.

  29. 11 months ago
    Anonymous
  30. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    how come people discussing euro navies are so much more autistic than discussion I hear about the pacific?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Euro navies basically did nothing in world war 2 so they have to spend hours arguing stats rather than actual performance like IJN. and USN fans

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Euro navies basically did nothing in world war 2
        not exactly accurate, the RN contained the RM and KM and prevented them from doing much, but the RN keeping the KM out of the atlantic and strangling supplies to north africa was significant in terms of the outcome of the war, the RN also did the heavy lifting fr the various amphibious landings in europe including overlord

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          it seems like there were only a few battles and they were just bongs bullying even more subpar navies. compare savo island with cape matapan.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      IJN attract people who appreciate kino visuals. USN attract losers who want to side with the bullies.
      Euro navies attract spreadsheet autists who talk about turtlebacks and scuttle vs. sink.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >"usa bullies".

        to be fair its the IJN that did the surprise attack on the states.

        I think USN attract those that just cling to their national ships and just cuz they were on the winning side.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >to be fair its the IJN that did the surprise attack on the states.

          Why do you think Japan attacked the US? It's not like they wanted to. American oil embargo forced them to, as it was either attack the Dutch East Indies for oil (which the US said it would defend), or watch your military literally run out of oil and your nation and economy collapse.

          The Japanese were literally counting down the days until their oil bunkers ran dry in the days leading up to Pearl Harbor.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >noooooooo you have to keep selling us oil so we can invade china mom said it's my turn to have an empire

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >If I type "noooo" and mock it in a greentext that means it's wrong! Checkmate!!

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >begging for anons to let him win here just like Japan begged to be allowed to buy oil

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            Anon, you want to tell us why Japan was going to run out of oil? It wouldn't possibly be due to a major war in China literally started by a battalion commander acting like a belligerent frickwit would it?

            I'd have more sympathy for Japan if it was the actual civilian government calling the shots, but it wasn't and hadn't been since the '20s. A literal army death cult of mid-grade officers was making up policy and starting shit with China. And that was the "moderate" faction. Civilian leadership was reduced to a rubber stamp for the military, as the army and navy could collapse the civilian government at will even without any uppity ministers getting assassinated by junior officers. They only answered to the emperor, and the emperor's role in government had been tradition'd away into a figurehead rather than an actual leader. The military leadership was fully invested in the whole idea of the Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere as a way to siphon off resources for continued military expansion. They weren't going to just stop if the US kept selling its own oil. The end result would have been WWII with a larger and better stocked IJN.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >W-what do you mean my small dick rage is causing other nations to put an embargo on me? How could this be happening to me?
            >*Has an Asian manlet chimpout and starts another war*

  31. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Because real life isn't a video game.

    Having the best "stats" and big numbers on paper isn't always conducive to a ship performing its intended role. These ships were built to be commerce raiders capable of repelling destroyers and cruisers, and outrunning battleships. These ships never actively sought confrontation with enemy battleships.

    They were slated to later receive 15" guns to able to better deal with the threat of battleship in any case.

  32. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >Alaska vs Scharnhorst

    who wins

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Alaska

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Alaska's fire control would tear it apart at max range before they even knew what was going on.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >better guns
      >better armor
      >better speed
      Alaska is better in every way.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Alaska had worse armour than Scharnhorst, its thinner and although the individual plates are undoubtedly of better quality in terms of metallurgy its doubtful they are enough better to give Alaska the better armour guns and speed are certainly better than Scharnhorst and FCS would also be notably superior.

        the difference in armour is understandable given the difference between design briefs of the two ships.

        Scharnhorst is designed as a treaty battleship and to stay under the tonnage restrictions and due to a lack of experience with making big naval artillery the germans went with 11 inch but battleship armour and respectable speed.

        Alaska was made to deal with rumoured Japanese supercruisers and was not expected to face battleships so used a armour scheme suitable for a Heavy cruiser speed and firepower were prioritised over protection

  33. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    I see your Scharnhorst, and raise you one Gniesnau...Tirpitz, anyone?

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Tripitz
      Sorry chap, I'm afraid he won't be showing up

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