Everyone seems to be talking about the Great Yamato… What about the Musashi? Are these 2 ships comparable? [:D]
Which would you prefer? [;)]
Both were monsters, Both were sunk. I prefer not to be sunk What’s so great bout being sunk??
Now the SoDaks, New Jersey, Missouri,Washington, North Carolina were great Battleships. Not because they were US Navy Ships but because they were Great Ships that were not sunk.
I’d have to agree, a great ship is one that survives an engagement to tell the story.
That’s certainly true [:D]
In terms of size and several other factors, Yamato and her sister Musashi were great ships…but we also have to remember that certain ships mean certain things to different people.
Without breaking down your criteria into categories, there’s several ways to categorize WW2 ships as ‘great ships’
Ships that evoked national pride or sorrow:
USS Arizona
HMS Hood
IJN Yamato
DKM Bismarck
Ships with a history of achivement
USS Enterprise CV-6
HMS Warspite
HMS Sheffield
Type VII U-boat (U-99, U-48, U-100, U-47)
Point is, I can name dozens of ‘great ships’ and find a reason to substantiate it.
Sometimes, it’s because of one single event…
USS Missouri (site of the surrender ceremony)
USS Arizona (first major loss of a USN vessel in WW2)
DKM Bismarck (loss of Germany’s most famous ship)
IJN Yamato (loss of Japan’s most famous ship)
It is, at best, very subjective.
Jeff
I like Yamato better soley because of the AA layout. Mushashi just seems to be missing something on the pt/stbd sided due to the gap between her outboard most AA mounts. I know silly but to each their own.
As for the greatest ship my vote goes to …ENTERPRISE. I know, I know… shes not a BATTLESHIP AMTRAC! Yeah, but she destroyed more enemy aircraft, her aircraft sank more enemy vessels, and survived everything the enemy threw at her. Heck, the Japanese claimed her sunk atleast 6 times that I am aware of. In fact Kamakaze would not engage her because she was a “ghost ship”. Unfortunately as we all know, her fate was decided by men who cared more for money than honor for a great ship.
at least the name was continued onto the 1st nuclear powered aircraft carrier
Anyone got pictures of CV-65? I would love to get my hands on one of those 1:350 Tamiya ones… they look pretty darn cool. =)
…it is just amazing to put the two ships side by side: Yamato and Missouri and imagine, what a ship to ship battle would have been.
Also to look at how the two nations engineers had solved the same problems of weight, armour, caliber, speed etc.
Yamato actually did well and survived into 1945 and was involved in more action than I thought before I started to study it. One of the great benefits of scale modelling: You have to get to know the “object”
rgds
Ole from Denmark
I would certainly agree that the North Carolinas, South Dakotas, and Iowas were great battleships in different ways. I also tend to think that the Yamatos perhaps have a slightly inflated reputation.
However, regardless of the relative merits of one class to another, I think the fact that all ten US fast battleships survived the war intact, while the two Japanese superbattleships did not is totally irrelevant. The ferocity and concentration of the air attacks that sank the two Yamatos was something the US battleships never had to face. The US battleships’ anti-aircraft defenses were probably superior to that of the Yamatos, but that superiority would not have allowed any of them to survive the attacks that the Yamatos did not.
The fact is that any WWII ship forced to deal with the concentration of airpower that faced Musashi and later Yamato, would have gone to the bottom just the same.
Andy
Actually, the Allies learned fairly early on in WW II that capital ships without aircover and facing large numbers of enemy aircraft, were not going to survive. Do the names HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse sound familiar?
True true, but the US navy did put a lot more thought into their water tight compartmentation than any other navy. Jeff Herne pointed out and I agree that it is hard to pin point the death blow on either of Japans super dreadnaughts. As far as concentrated air attack, anybody remember the fight off Okinawa? Granted they were not coordinated torpedo attacks like the U.S. Navy’s aerial attacks on the aforementioned, but a 10,000lb flying bomb can be effective against any warship. Several USN BBs were hit by Kamakaze with minor damage. In all honesty, every class BB had their stregnths and weaknesses. As with any engagement, I believe it would have flat come down to luck and training and courage of the individual commanders and crews.
Washington & So. Dakota vs. Kirishima + cruisers? Pearl Harbor battleships at Leyte Gulf? There is evidence out there.
G.L.
I always liked the Alaska class BC’s, too bad they never got to see much combat (though if someone has informatioon to the contray I’ll stand corrected) and what of the Japanese ships they were meant to take on ?. and imagine if the Montana’s had been built and launched… makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
umustb
Wanted some picture’s of the USS Enterprise
opps wrong Enterprise
at least most on the steel from CV-6 went into CVN-65
as a note on those two battleships, the US Navy used more aircraft against them, then the Japanese used to attack Pearl Harbor
but than the japanese ships weren’t caught by surprise like the americans at pearl harbor
They saw quite a bit of action as fast carrier escorts, and - IIRC - were prized for their heavy AA armament. When the Franklin left the combat zone after her catastrophic meeting with a kamikaze, she was escorted by both Alaska and Guam.
They also teamed up to bombard a Japanese Radar installation near Okinawa during that campaign.
Yah… Tora Tora Tora! (Movie on the Pearl Harbour attack)
FSM just bought my article, “The Greatest Battleship Never Built.” If you want to see a herkin’ big dreadnaught, wait 'til this kitbash hits the newstands. It’s bigger and more heavily armed than even the Yamato/Musashi ships.