Given the recent discovery of the IJN Musashi, together with her sister ship the Yamato the largest battleships ever afloat, I throw this out there for the masses:
One of those behemoths against one Iowa class battleship (Iowa, Missouri, New Jersey, or Wisconsin). The Jap vessels had 18" main guns, exceeding the U.S. BB’s by 2". However, it is said that the U.S. battlewagons had superior fire control sysems. I also believe that the Japs had heavier armor plating.
Sooooo, who would win in a mano-y-mano, gunfight slugfest?
One on one? Probably the Musashi or Yamato. Bigger guns and thicker armor. But the Iowa was 20% faster and had better aiming abilities. No idea.
WWII US Military victory’s never really came because they were technologically superior (maybe in late 1945 they did) but because they could just dump thousands and thousands of equipment and overpower with sheer numbers. (See Sherman Tanks, F4F Wildcat, and US Navy Destroyers)
The Yamato-class lacked a fire control radar. The Iowas’ guns were radar-aimed, and had an analog computer that could compensate for target speed, vessel speed, projectile speed, and even air resistance against the projectile. The superiority of the U.S. Fire control systems really stood out during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.
The Iowas were faster, more maneuverable, and more accurate. Iowas guns, when firing the Mark 8 AP round had almost identical armor penetration ability to Yamato. I think a closer match for the Yamato-Class would have been the South Dakota-class, which preceded Iowa.
Ship born aircraft were used to spot rounds for battleships before Billy Mitchell showed the Gun Club they were sitting ducks to good pilots. Gun technology had exceeded most sighting instruments on battleships as they were capable of sending shells that dipped below the curvature of the Earth.
This is were seaplane on battleships come in, before the carriers. They were to fly and radio shell hits. The aircraft carrier was a tag along to support the battleships in this.
Until Billy Mitchell and a few other pioneers.
What most people don’t know was that our aircrews, carriers and pilots were the best in the world prior to WWII. They were far better dive bombers than the Japanes. They were just frowned upon by the “Gun Club.”
Kind of an aside of this, the family went to Pearl Harbor and we toured the Pacific Air Museum. They had some Migs 15-17-29 on display. I told my 10 year old son, there are no F-15s on display in Moscow…
Our ballistics solutions were a bit more flexible and practical on the fire direction end - 16" guns do ridiculous things when they hit, so fire control would be what actually dictated most of the properly simulated battles. A decent chunk of them would result in both just limping away, and anything that reflected our slight edge in air power asset availability would end-run around the actual capability differential of the battleships themselves. From there it’s all monte carlo simulation approach - just one lucky shot that hits the thinner armor sections above a magazine means a catastrophic kill, while an actual drag-out slugfest could result in both vessels just ruining the armor plate and just waiting to see which one had a structural buckling that prevented the ability of one to isolate compartments that are no longer watertight - and that would probably be what decided the last small percentage of those fights.
Fire Control, absolutely. Factoring in the capabilities of the two ships further stacks in the odds in favor of Iowa. Iowa had marked advantages in speed and maneuverability, on top of an FCS that could accurately direct fire while utilizing those advantages. For her size, Yamato’s speed and maneuverability was impressive. Compared to Iowa though, she was slow and sluggish.
Have the battle take place at night, and Yamato is little more than huge target that can make a loud bang.
Because the Iowa-class came along at a point in time when the Battleship itself was already largely obsolete, they never really got full recognition for being the undisputed king of the Battleships. No other country really made a Battleship that had a legitimate shot at defeating one in a gun battle.
The amount of damage the Musashi and her sister the Yamato absorbed before sinking is staggering, and this was from aircraft bombs and torpedoes. From all the naval gun battles in WWII I’ve read about the number of hits required by a gun to sink a ship (and even then many were scuttled as a coup de grace) far exceeds the number of bombs and torpedoes required to do the same. So if the Musashi took like 17 bombs and 19 torpedoes to sink her just think how many 16" gun shells would’ve been required to accomplish the same thing.
Demise by naval gunfire, unless a (un)lucky combination of events like on the HMS Hood, generally was a “death by a thousand cuts”. Analogous to two Sumo wrestlers shooting the piss out of each other with .22LR’s as opposed to using .45’s. Barring a lucky hit the former is going to be a very s-l-o-w way to die.
A Chinese-made “Silkworm” anti-ship missile was fired at USS Missouri during the Gulf War. It was shot down by one of Missouri’s picket ships, HMS Gloucester.
I wouldn’t argue against any of the points you make. All I’d add to it is look at the amount of gunfire USS South Dakota absorbed during the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, and still withdrew under her own power. South Dakota was a “treaty” Battleship, unlike Iowa. Iowa has the advantage over Yamato, because of her ability to deliver rounds on target in a much more accurate manner.
I think against a battle group a single missile has no chance whatsoever. For an effective attack there must be a salvo of anti ship missiles that overwhelms the anti missile defense systems.
That is exactly why the Sovets designed and built the way they did. If you send an arse load of okay missiles through a few the will make it to the targets. Look at the Japanese and the kamikazes.
Check out this link. It’s a PDF on the battle damage the Kirishima sustained in the shootout with the Washington and South Dakota. Scroll down to page 8 for a diagram. Keep in mind Kirishima was an “old” battleship and it took being scuttled by the Japs themselves to actually sink even after all the gun damage, so imagine what punishment a more modern Yamato or Musashi could absorb from naval gunfire.
I don’t necessarily disagree with your assessment of Iowa’s possible advantage, that’s why I posted this as a discussion (I love this kind of historical shit!). Musashi/Yamato’s 18" guns delivered a shell that weighed like 3200lbs. IIRC Iowa’s could shoot one that weighed 2700lbs. Not sure if most of the weight in these naval rounds was invested in it’s armor-piercing capability, i.e. only a small percentage of the overall weight was high-explosives, the bulk was solid steel.
The Kirishima actually capsized - due to massive main gun hits that penetrated her hull at the water line. The Jap Cdr & Damage Control Officer incorrectly tried to counter flooded compartment to correct a list. The Kirishima had design flaws that allowed for free movement of water across the beam from compartment to compartment. They basically over corrected and it capsized. The damage is astounding though - they have accounted for aproximately 37 hits and as many as 20 may have been from the 16" main s from Washington & S. Dakota. This is based on the IJN LtCdr Hayashi - he was the Damage Control Officer and actually made sketches when they were abandoning ship. The analysis concludes that the Kirishima would have sunk anyway based on the gunfire damage - the incorrect counter flooding caused a quicker demise.
You points are spot on though. Another interesting aspect is the difference in performance of the Jap AP rounds - they had serious issues with time delays and yaw - many of the hits on S. Dakota’s did not expode internally, but rather passed through or failed altogether.
