WWII Trivia

[Pistolenschutze]

Correct, X. King George V, Rodney (who was called off convoy duty to assist in the chase), along with several other British battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, not to mention a carrier, finished off Bismarck in the Denmark Stait.

What U.S. submarine was the first to penetrate sucessfully the Inland Sea of Japan during WWII and to sink Japanese shipping there?

[polishshooter]

Wahoo? Just a guess without checking...(but then "Wahoo" or "Tang" is always a good guess... )

I heard the Rodney design was meant to negate an enemy line "crossing the T" and masking your after batteries, although I don't see how the rear turret would be good at anything BUT a broadside, it was actually LOWER than Turret #2.

They were decent designs supposedly otherwise, though. Although defenseless if being CHASED... although the RN probably felt they would always be doing the "chasing..."




OK, name for me all of the British/Commonwealth designed aircraft flown during the war by AMERICAN pilots or crews you can...I thought I could name MOST of them, but just learned of one more type that surprised me...I'll spot you the Spitfire...

[Pistolenschutze]

Yes, Polish, USS Wahoo under command of Dudley W. "Mushmouth" Morton was the first to penetrate the Inland Sea and sank several ships there. Tragically, it was on a later attempted penetration--Wahoo's 7th war patrol--that Wahoo was lost to cause or causes unknown. She is "still on patrol" somewhere off the coast of Japan.

Originally Posted by polishshooter

OK, name for me all of the British/Commonwealth designed aircraft flown during the war by AMERICAN pilots or crews you can...I thought I could name MOST of them, but just learned of one more type that surprised me...I'll spot you the Spitfire...

I don't know if I can name them all, but certainly the Spit, as you said, and the Hurricane. Now, didn't some American pilots fly the Mosquito as well, an the Wellington?

[17thfabn]

THe three triple 16" turrets of the HMS Rodney were grouped together so less area would have to be armored (armoured to the Brits). Many battle ships had heavy armor around the heavy turrets and their below deck turret mechanery, and ammo storage, and engine rooms. The rest of the ship was often fairly lightly armored. The HMS Rodney was just under treaty limits for ships of that era.

[polishshooter]

I also cheated a little on the Brit aircraft...I was surprised to read a blurb in Morison where he talked about Coastal Command in the Med. using Beaufighters as nightfighters to combat the night attacks the Luftwaffe started on our convoys using JU-88s, DO-217s, and He-111s, some with torps and some with the radio guided bombs, (which is another fascinating story, of how QUICK we were to attach minesweepers carrying jamming gear to convoys that negated the first "smart bombs" so quickly!)


He slipped in "with some piloted by USAAF crews" when he talked about the Beaufighters, it caught me by surprise!

I was also pretty amused at Wildcats escorting or "teaming with" Swordfishes off the Brit CVEs, could a 'cat GO that slow without stalling? He talked about the Brits trying the "American Fighter/Bomber team" method after seeing how it worked with the Bogue and the Card. I can just picture the sight now, some Uboat 'Aces" might have dies from laughter seeing THAT formation!

But also he says how it was almost suicidal for a Swordfish to attack a Uboat conventionally that used the "Fight Back " method, but before they could switch to Avengers they tried rockets on the Swordfish and suddenly PRESTO, 'Stringbag Uboat Killer!" I was AMAZED at how many Uboats actually died with rockets fired from Swordfishes, just MAYBE the slow platform was the best rocket platform!


Although you had to PITY the Swordfish crews flying cover for a MURMANSK convoy....




What was a "Monitor" and who used them?

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

What was a "Monitor" and who used them?

I shall assume, Sir, that you are not referring to that unstable, damnyankee "cheesebox on a raft" that had the unmitigated effrontery to challenge the brilliantly designed CSS Alabama at Hampton Rhodes.

Monitors were essentially heavily armed (with 40mm, 20mm, .50 cal, mortars)gunboats used by us, mostly in the Mekong Delta, during the Vietnam war, Polish. The firepower one of those babies could put out was amazing, and God help Charlie when they cut loose. They were often referred to as "battleships" by the troops, and in that setting, they essentially were. I even got to ride on one once when I was TDY in the Delta for about a month and a half. I manned one of the .50 cals.

[Pistolenschutze]

Another one:

In what Pacific Island campaign did the military essentially make the decision to use poison gas against the enemy garrison prior to landing? Gas was, of course, ultimately not used, but only because Roosevelt himself forbade it at the last minute.

[17thfabn]

Lots of great info here. But I think it would be better to have each of these subjects as seperate threads. Of course polish can be counted on to have any thread go in a 1,000 different directions !

[polishshooter]

I think it was Iwo, right PS? ANd there are STILL Marines wondering WHY we didn't use it, after all, there were NO civilians there...


I didn't remember that about the Monitors in Vietnam, not sure I ever heard of that. And I even read a couple of books on the Brown Water Navy before, mostly about the PBRs. In fact, I think I own a Ballantine Book on it, I'll have to go dig it out. But then again I had never heard the term "Swift Boat" either until J.F. Kerry!

I was thinking of the Brit "fire support Monitors" Morison talked about off Sicily. One of them contributed to stopping a German Armor attack with the US Cruisers. I BELIEVE they were Heavy Cruiser size with ONE two gun 15" BB turret, but I'm not sure, going to check Janes FIghting Ships of WWII next time I have time in the local library....




OK, here's one for YOU, PS, see if you REALLY know your "88s..." IT might ALSO be a good one for you 17th!!!

What OTHER countries in World War II ALSO fielded an "88mm" gun as standard issue? And even though it wasn't DESIGNED for it, ALSO used it as a "stopgap" AT gun at times.....

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

I think it was Iwo, right PS? ANd there are STILL Marines wondering WHY we didn't use it, after all, there were NO civilians there...

Yes, it was Iwo Jima, Polish. The military was all set to use the gas, and I suspect it would have been quite effective. Roosevelt, however, felt the political price of being the first nation to use poison gas in the war was too high. I think he was wrong, but that is just my opinion.

I do remember reading about the WWII bombardment monitors, now that you mention them, Polish. As I recall, they were essentially all guns and very little hull. Not much good in a sea fight, but effective against land targets.

Hmmm, 88s from other countries . . . . I'm not surprised that others used such a weapon. After all, the Germans certainly proved its effectiveness! It would not surprise me if the Russians adopted it. They were usually not afraid to adopt weapons from the other side if they found them to be effective (except rifles, of course! ). Any country the Germans equipped would also be candidates, Romania, for example. The Brits might well have at least experimented with an 88. They were always pretty good with artillery. The U.S. undoubtedly experimented with it as well, but I do not remember reading about any cases where we employed an 88mm gun. We always seemed to go with a 90mm instead.

[17thfabn]

The British listed many of their WW II guns by weight of shot, rather archaic, and rather British. The most common British field gun of World War II was the 25 pounder gun/howitzer. It had a bore diameter of ............








88 mm

In the North African desert it was often used in the direct fire mode against German tanks. It was used primarily in the inderect fire mode as a howitzer. But as German armor (armour to the Brits) bulked up it was used to back up the tiny 2 pounder anti-tank gun ( about the size of our 37mm gun).

The British 25 pounder did not have the high velocity of the German 88. But the 25 pounder was a much handier gun, easier to get in and out of action. And it was more effective against infantry.

[polishshooter]

BINGO, 17th! I figgered a "Gun Bunny" would get it! (Did I ever tell you that my father was MOST proud of his time in WWII as a #4 on a towed 105 crew training at Bragg? Whenever he had "one two many" almost until he died, you could count on a BAD rendition of "The Caissons go rolling along!" sooner or later! )


Yeah, the 25 pounder...and it was effective in direct fire against any armor in the desert up to the Tiger, although there are some harrowing accounts of how CLOSE the Tigers got before the 25s knocked them out...but it was HELL on anything Italian or Panzer I-II-IIIs, which were the most common tanks the Afrika Corp had...plus any Jap armor encountered by the Aussies or Kiwis in New Guinea, Indonesia, or the Brits in the CBI.

But the biggest use in a "tank battle" was counterbattery with HE to try and suppress the 88 Flakkanones that Rommel liked to use to pop the Matildas before they got close to use their MGs....which was surprisingly effective because the 88 AA mount was so high and actually a really big target, even if WAY out there....

[Pistolenschutze]

OK, another Kriegsmarine question:

What three post-World-War-I German battleships, and which were used against the Allies in World War II, are commonly referred to as the "pocket battleships?

[Marlin]

Would you be talking about the Heavy Crusiers that had larger armament and were reclassified as Battlewagons as a result?

These would be the Deutschland, Admiral Scheer and the Admiral Graf Spree.

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by Marlin

These would be the Deutschland, Admiral Scheer and the Admiral Graf Spree.

Very good, Marlin! You are quite correct. Those three (the Deutschland was later renamed the Lutzow) were officially classed by the Germans as being within the Versailles treaty limits in terms of tonnage, but of course in reality, they were considerably heavier and more powerful.

[polishshooter]

More powerful than WHAT, PS? DDs? If memory serves, they got handled pretty "nicely" by Brit LIGHT much less heavy cruisers.

Granted their 11" guns out RANGED the British 6 and 8 inchers, but the British were actually throwing more iron with each salvo (8-12 guns in a full salvo per ship compared to only 6 in a full salvo of the 11 inchers of the Nazis) with less time BETWEEN salvos than the Germans too, and being faster than the Germans it was no contest...they just smothered the Graf Spee for example with salvo after salvo while running in closer at a speed the Germans couldn't hit them until they had to run with their tails between their skinny Teutonic legs into Montivideo to escape ..and the others effectively accomplished LESS...


The "Pocket battleships" were just another colossal waste of resources, (like Germany was wont to do!) backed up by massive propaganda. For the cost of ONE of them they would have been better off building and manning 2 or 3 of REAL CAs like the Prinz Eugen, with maybe even a few more DDs thrown in as well! Heck, they would have been better off with a hundred more cheap Auxiliary cruisers for commerce raiding at the start of the war than any of the "Pocket BBs..."

In reality they were ONLY good as "commerce raiders" against convoys with only DDs as escort, which they RARELY if ever accomplished.....


But of course we HAD to copy them, (If the GERMANS had it it MUST be good! )and wasted good resources of our own on our 12" late war "BCs", the Alaska class, that were too small to take on BBs, and too large to "waste" fighting cruisers, that we thankfully canceled before we built too many!


The Alaskas DID do OK for shore bombardment, but I suspect the Servrons bitched a lot for having to lug around ANOTHER size of naval ammo!

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

The "Pocket battleships" were just another colossal waste of resources, (like Germany was wont to do!) backed up by massive propaganda. For the cost of ONE of them they would have been better off building and manning 2 or 3 of REAL CAs like the Prinz Eugen, with maybe even a few more DDs thrown in as well! Heck, they would have been better off with a hundred more cheap Auxiliary cruisers for commerce raiding at the start of the war than any of the "Pocket BBs..."

It may surprise you, but you won't get any argument from me on the above issue, Polish. The "pockets" were indeed essentially a waste of resources, at least as it actually turned out. It must be borne in mind, however, that no one knew that at the time. Everyone, including the U.S., still assumed the BB would be the dominant surface vessel of the coming war (I'm sure the ghost of Billy Mitchel is still chuckling about that assumption). That, of course, proved to be totally false. By and large (and yes, there were a few exceptions), the BBs turned out to have relatively little use beyond shore bombardment (which heavy cruisers could have done very nearly as well) and as massive anti-aircraft platforms. Yet despite this, we built the Iowa class anyway. Still though, there IS something deeply intimidating about a massive battleship off one's coast, and I think that holds true even today.

Actually, I think the Germans would have been far, far better off pre-war to have invested not in battleships, but rather in U-boats. They only had about 50 (53, if memory serves me) in September 1939, and some of those were only fit for coastal patrol. Had they had 300 instead (which is what Doenitz wanted), I seriously doubt England could have held out until the U.S. finally entered the war in December 1941. By 1943, of course, the U-boats (Types VII and IX at least) were obsolete, but the enormous damage 300 of them could have done during the first 2 1/2 years of the war is scary to contemplate.

Another thought does enter the picture though. What if the Germans had actually built their massive Type H battlewagons? Neither the British nor the Americans had ANYTHING that could have fought them, and Britain at least did not have the resources to build anything comparable.

OK, yet another Kriegsmarine question: What two German battleships were responsible for sinking a British carrier and were nicknamed the "ugly sisters?"

[Marlin]

I believe the Ugly Sisters were the battlecruisers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

Scharnhorst sank the HMS Glorious, along with her escort destroyers, HMS Acasta and HMS Ardent in the Norwegian Sea. In the maylay Scharnmorst received major damage but was able to escape.

.

[polishshooter]

NOW, PS, you just LOVE a good fight, don't you?

MORE "Conventional wisdom" about WWII that just ain't so!!!

OK, we'll do this the SOCRATIC method...

True or false, "There were more Battleship vs. Battleship fights in World War II than Carrier vs. Carrier."

3 of the 5 "Carrier vs. Carrier" fights or at least the final results of them were DIRECTLY influenced by the presence of Battleships on one side or the other or both...

Battleships COULD HAVE engaged in as many DECISIVE surface to surface fights in the war as Carriers vs. Carriers if only "the Turkey trotted to water..."


No PS, what killed the BBs was NOT the carrier, but the cost of OPERATING them in the Post WWII cutbacks surrounding the nascent "nuclear" age...

The BB WAS a viable and decisive surface warship in WWII, was INDESPENSABLE as part of the Anti-aircraft screen of the carriers, was proved INVULNERABLE (yes, that's what I SAID) to air attack armed with WWII weapons, AND even to modern weapons and ship to ship missles not nuclear tipped, IF underway AND possessing adequate modern dual purpose radar controlled guns, and oh yeah, incidentally WERE unsurpassed at ship to shore fire support...as LATE as 1991!

You REALLY need to get out more PS!

[Xracer]

Originally Posted by polishshooter

The BB WAS a viable and decisive surface warship in WWII.......was proved INVULNERABLE (yes, that's what I SAID) to air attack armed with WWII weapons.......

Gee Polish, I'm sure the crews of the Repulse, Prince of Wales, and Yamato would love to hear that.......

[Pistolenschutze]

Originally Posted by Xracer

Gee Polish, I'm sure the crews of the Repulse, Prince of Wales, and Yamato would love to hear that.......

Well said, X, and indeed quite true. You forgot to mention Musashi (sister ship to Yamato), and, of course, the Pearl Harbor attack itself. Oh, and lest we forget the Italian debacle at Taranto at the hands of British toredo aircraft.

Polish, yes, as I said earlier, there were a few confrontations between battleships during WWII, but the key battles--e.g., Coral Sea, Midway, Leyte Gulf and the actions off Okinawa--were carrier or at least aircraft dominated engagements. Oldendorf's and Lee's battleship actions, as well as the famous encounter between Bismarck and the British navy, were quite spectacular and tactically important, but not strategically critical. I will not argue that the battleships were totally unimportant for they did play a vital but secondary role for task force protection and bombardment, but by the beginning of WWII they were generally anachronisms as purely surface vessels intended to fight other, similar surface vessels.

[polishshooter]

I must AGAIN politely disagree wholeheartedly with you PS!

And X you MISSED the qualifier...which was "adequate radar controlled dual purpose AA armament!" The ABSENCE of such at the beginning of the war, coupled with the misplaced confidence that any BB COULD face aircraft even with inadequate AA armament is EXACTLY what CREATED the "myth" that everybody regurgitates about "Battleships being proved worthless against aircraft!" The FACTS show after a simp and relatively CHEAP fix of adding adequate MODERN AA guns, even WITHOUT Radar, the BBs BECAME even MORE impregnable to air than previously thoguth!

NONE of the pre-war BBS from ANYBODY had dual purpose secondary batteries EXCEPT the Americans, the Japs had crappy AA the ENTIRE war, and never seriously improved theris, besides adding MORE crappy guns, and NEVER were "radar" controlled...even the vaunted Bismarck and Tirpitz were obsolete in regards to AA armament...which is WHY a rickety Swordfish COULD score on it! But with the American 5"38 DP turreted secondaries, radar control, all the retrofitted and later designed in quad-40mm mounts, coupled with the STATE OF THE ART proximity fuses, the BBs, EVEN the resurrected and refitted Pearl survivors, WERE invulnerable to aircraft, even kamikazes, after that, and NO carrier admiral went to sea WITHOUT at least one BB sailing in sight, if only just for the AA, if he wanted to sleep at night!...even ONE BB opening up was the equivalent of 3 or 4 CLAAs, DESIGNED for AA protection! And with pretty much only better radar and a few anti-missile computer controlled 20mm Phalanx CI systems, any of the Iowa class was and would be STILL invulnerable to anything but nukes!


Ahhh...ANOTHER "Conventional Wisdom" fight I am passionate about disputing!

And PS, there were SEVERAL times with a more aggressive commander a "modern" BB force could have "mixed it up" with fleet carriers during the war, and methinks you and all the other "CWers" would be singing a different tune if it happened just ONCE....and the Mahanian Sea battle of surface annihilation actually DID happen...there was a REASON Halsey didn't leave TF34 off Samar when he went charging off after the last Jap CVs off Cape Engano! AFTER he THOUGHT he had "turned back" the Jap BBs with his superior "Air power" with substantially BETTER planes that had ever attacked Battleships up to that point! (He hadn't!)

The BB was a PROVED offensive weapon even at that time, but still the MOST POWERFUL one that figured into ALL our naval plans until the end of the war....


The ONLY real knock against them was their expense, and subsequent "value" they then had to ANY nation far beyond merely military power....for any nation to LOSE an "irreplaceable" battleship was SUCH a prestige blow TO AN ENTIRE NATION that no admiral thought he could RISK losing one...so really the most powerful weapon afloat, actually made most admirals TIMID about actually USING them....


EXCEPT of course for "Ching Chong China" Lee...




Can anyone name for me ALL of the BB vs. BB fights in WWII?

How about all the carriers that WERE sunk by BBs?

[Pistolenschutze]

REVISIONIST!!!!!

You know, Polish, revisionist historians usually come to a bad end. They commonly end up on the faculty at Harvard and working for Democratic administrations.

Actually, part of what you say is demonstrably true, Polish. If you read my posts carefully, you will see that I've already conceded that. Battleships were unquestionably powerful vessels (though much easier to sink than the "Big Gun" admirals wanted to admit; Freud would probably have had a field day with that ). Consider, for example, what happened to HIJMS Kongo and the fact that none of the Iowa class ever fired a shell at an enemy battleship. No one in his right mind wants to argue with over nine tons of steel and high-explosive coming out of an Iowa class battleship's broadside. But, having said that, it is still evident that World War II at sea essentially evolved into an aircraft-carrier/commerce-raiding-submarine war, coupled, of course, with necessary but costly assaults by the "Poor Bloody Infantry." A war of attrition, not a Mahan type "one big battle" war. Those magnificent (and they truly were magnificent vessels) battlewagons did play a role, but it was largely--though not entirely--confined to a support role, not the primary battle-line role as everyone thought would be the case. Consider, for example, Plan Orange that never happened simply because Jap aircraft had put all our battleships on the mud at the bottom of Pearl Harbor in less than two hours. What took up the slack for the first-year-and-a-half? Answer: submarines and aircraft carriers.

Now, as every good historian should do to be objective, I will point out that part of what you say is unquestionably true. The very existence of battleships in a task group strongly affected naval tactics on both sides. I will even concede that to fight battleships effectively, one truly needs battleships, even with air superiority or something close to it. I think you hit on the essential reason why they finally disappeared, though you do not go quite far enough. Mainly, the cost of building and maintaining them, coupled with the enormous manpower and dockyard facilities needed to keep them running spelled a practical end to their employment. Yet the fact still remains that the advent of carrier based sea war also played a significant role in their demise. I also agree that battleships, over time, became more symbols of national power than efficient and effective weapons, and thus too valuable to risk. I've often wondered what would have happened if the U.S. and the Soviet Union had ended up in a full-blown conventional slugging match. Would we have risked the new symbols--our aircraft carriers--or held them back? An interesting question, I think.

Oh, by the way, don't you ever read your "polishcruffler" e-mail? I sent you a sorta-kinda present yesterday.

[Marlin]

Can y' all stop long enough to let me know if I were right ??????

[Pistolenschutze]

Oops! Sorry 'bout that Marlin! Yes, you were quite correct. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were the "Ugly Sisters," a name given to them by the British. I guess Polish and I do get a tad carried away now and then.