Iowas vs Jutland

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2004-02-24 02:07pm

This just popped into my brain when I read that Kerry voted to cancel the the Iowa rennovation program, talk about random association.

Anyway, lets hear some thoughts.

Iowas have their WWII payload.

Jutland forces, both German and British working in conjunction, have their WWI payload.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-02-24 02:10pm

All four Iowas, or just the Iowa?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-02-24 02:12pm

Would they have any sort of screening force?

Assuming it's a straight up duel then the Iowas are going to be able to hammer both combined fleet pretty badly thanks to better firepower, better rangefinding and fire control, and superior speed. They can hurtly hit them further, faster, and harder.

Though to be fair if the escorts get off a torpedo strike the Iowa deficient underwater protection system is going to leave them really hurting.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2004-02-24 02:12pm

Rogue 9 wrote:All four Iowas, or just the Iowa?

I did consistently use plural, but for the sake of arguement, lets make it both.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-02-24 02:15pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:All four Iowas, or just the Iowa?
I did consistently use plural, but for the sake of arguement, lets make it both.

Don't you mean all four complete (Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin)? Or even all six (Kentucky and Illinois)?

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-02-24 02:26pm

All four Iowas would take it. A single one? I don't know, it'd be facing overwhelming force. All six Iowas (assuming completion) would just clean up; there's no way the Jutland forces could get them all.

As for torpedoes, the WW1 torps were unguided and the Iowas are much faster than the targets the torpedoes were designed to hit.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2004-02-24 02:32pm

Stormbringer wrote:
BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:All four Iowas, or just the Iowa?
I did consistently use plural, but for the sake of arguement, lets make it both.
Don't you mean all four complete (Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin)? Or even all six (Kentucky and Illinois)?

I meant all four (read the question carefully).

Though we can make this even MORE interesting by making it all 6 and having them face ALL the navies of the WWI world (including the US's) instead of just the forces of Jutland.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2004-02-24 02:33pm

Stormbringer wrote:
BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:
Rogue 9 wrote:All four Iowas, or just the Iowa?
I did consistently use plural, but for the sake of arguement, lets make it both.
Don't you mean all four complete (Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin)? Or even all six (Kentucky and Illinois)?

I think he meant both criteria: one Iowa, and all four.

The result would not be preety. The Iowa's are badly outnumered, and any skilled Admiral would be able to surround the enemy ships regardless of their speed advantage due to the sheer size of the fleet.

We all know that Iowa armour is excellent, but even this beast is going to find it hard to survive continuous barrages of 12-15 inch weapons. Eventually, the destruction of un-armoured sections of the ship will contribute to a mission kill - with the fleet coming in closer for a torpedo kill.

It's difficult to speculate how many ships the Iowa would take down - the 2700 lb Iowa shells will wreck havok against even the QE and Nassau classes, who compared to their contemporaries were very strongly armoured. But just how long could the Iowa survive before it succumed?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-02-24 03:02pm

As for the notion of surrounding the Iowas, that's not going to happen with any decent battleship admiral commanding them. They've got a major speed advantage over all the heavies and they can brush aside most battlecruisers easily. Add in the fact that the Iowas will no doubt have scout planes up and it'll be hard to catch them napping. So any attempt at encirclement is going to be a bloody failure.

As for actual pounding match, keep in mind that the Iowas are all designed to take the fire of improved 16" guns. They've also got an AoN/Raft Body set up, unlike their opponents, so actually putting them out of the fight isn't going to be easy.

And on the flip side, the Jutland dreadnaughts don't have a hope of standing up to a barrage 16" superheavy shell and definitely not in a long range duel. With their superior fire control the sort of plunging, long range fire that did so much damage is going to be an even bigger problem for the combined enemy fleet.

Chances are the Jutland fleet would break off with heavy losses rather than fight to the death against all four sisters (provided of course they have decent escorts). Against any one, the Iowa-class could pick off a few battlecruisers and withdraw from the engagement.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-02-24 03:04pm

BlkbrryTheGreat wrote:Though we can make this even MORE interesting by making it all 6 and having them face ALL the navies of the WWI world (including the US's) instead of just the forces of Jutland.

Provided they have a secure support base they could wreak havoc. No one has a heavy unit capable of keeping pace with them and anything that does is going to get hurt like hell. Best to use them as 3 two ship squadrons or 2 three ships squadrons. They'd do a hell of a lot of damage.

They'd just have to be very, very careful about U-boats or any torpedo attacks.

Ma Deuce · Post by **Ma Deuce** » 2004-02-24 03:16pm

ALI_G wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:
BlkbrryTheGreat wrote: I did consistently use plural, but for the sake of arguement, lets make it both.
Don't you mean all four complete (Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri, and Wisconsin)? Or even all six (Kentucky and Illinois)?
I think he meant both criteria: one Iowa, and all four.

The result would not be preety. The Iowa's are badly outnumered, and any skilled Admiral would be able to surround the enemy ships regardless of their speed advantage due to the sheer size of the fleet.

We all know that Iowa armour is excellent, but even this beast is going to find it hard to survive continuous barrages of 12-15 inch weapons. Eventually, the destruction of un-armoured sections of the ship will contribute to a mission kill - with the fleet coming in closer for a torpedo kill.

It's difficult to speculate how many ships the Iowa would take down - the 2700 lb Iowa shells will wreck havok against even the QE and Nassau classes, who compared to their contemporaries were very strongly armoured. But just how long could the Iowa survive before it succumed?

You're forgetting that due to their fire-control radar (which was sensitive enough to register splashes of shells hitting the water near maximum gun range), the Iowas can see and shoot much farther and with greater accuracy than their opponents, who still use lookouts on masts for target aquisition. Also, since the Iowas are much faster than their opponents, they could simply conduct the entire engagement from beyond the effective acquisition range of the enemy lookouts, so the British and Germans would not even be able to see the Iowas at all, much less engage them.

Another advantage of their radar and speed: since the Iowas would be aware of the position of all enemy ships, and again, given their speed, they could easily escape if need be.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2004-02-24 03:55pm

In fact the Iowas have something like a twelve knot speed advantage over the enemy battleships, and still several knots over the enemy battlecruisers.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-02-24 05:52pm

Its been done (on warships1 anyway), the Iowans lack sufficient ammunition to make a clean sweep of even the dreadnought's, let alone the vast swarms of light forces, but they'd be pretty much invincible, only a few destroyers could match there speed even in clam water, and they can hit blind by radar from at least ten thousand yards outside the maximum range of any British or German gun afloat.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-02-24 07:04pm

Stormbringer wrote:
As for actual pounding match, keep in mind that the Iowas are all designed to take the fire of improved 16" guns.

Note quite, assuming by improved 16 inch gun you mean the 16/50 Mk7 Superheavy combo we all love.

The Iowa's had protection designed to provide an immunity zone against 16/45 inch guns with a 2240 pound shell, protection wasn't designed or sufficient to face the 2700 pound superheavy round fired out of the 16/50. That should be no surprise considering there protection had basically no increases over that of the 35,000 ton South Dakotas.

When the USN sat down to design an armor package that would provide useful protection against the superheavy shell outo f the 16/50 it ended up with Montana, which had an extra four inches on the belt, and had the primary armored deck thickened from 4.75 inches (5 in a few places) to 5.8 inches.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-02-24 08:40pm

The Iowas' TDS should actually be useful against the types of torpedos in use in WW1.

Sea Skimmer is correct in that the Iowas simply don't have enough ammunition to make a clean sweep, but they would be devestating as long as the ammo held out.

(Next in a series of absurd battles, all four Iowas in their 1980s configuration with full TASM and Harpoon loads)

Frank Hipper · Post by **Frank Hipper** » 2004-02-24 09:18pm

If the Iowas were to get caught between the British and Germans, with miraculous visibility, they might be hammered into wrecks, but that would take some pretty miraculous conditions.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2004-02-24 09:38pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:
As for actual pounding match, keep in mind that the Iowas are all designed to take the fire of improved 16" guns.

Note quite, assuming by improved 16 inch gun you mean the 16/50 Mk7 Superheavy combo we all love.

No, I was thinking of the later mark 16/45 guns specifically. I'm aware that the Iowas weren't designed to stand up to their own guns.