If Sag-C = Baltimore, WWII cruisers as HH analog discussion.

Henry Brown wrote:

robert132 wrote:
I don't know if you've made it up this way to Norfolk, but we have the Wisconsin downtown if you'd care to visit. Her internal tour isn't as extensive as North Carolina's but the museum is still working on that and they hope to have most of the ship open for tours before too much longer.

Funny you should mention that. I was up that way 2 weeks ago. It was a combination trip of catching up with an old friend from high school/college and of seeing the band Nightwish at the Norva in Norfolk. But I also managed to find time to tour the Wisconsin. And went over to the Mariner's Museum and saw the parts of the Monitor that have been salvaged.

Jonathan_S wrote:I’m not actually sure if any of those torpedoes have an anti-surface ship mode. They’re all, AFAIK, designed for sub hunting and their probably programmed to avoid engaging surface ships so you can safely drop them on subs near your convey, battle group, etc. given that they’d be fairly ineffective at sinking ships (small warheads optimized to poke holes in subs) the designers may have hardwired the surface target lockout so operator error can’t lead to accidentally damaging a friendly ship.

Henry Brown wrote:

robert132 wrote:Fast note, neither the North Carolina class nor the South Dakota class can be considered "treaty" battleships. Both classes were put into service with 16" rifles as main armament, the treaty limit was 14". The NC originally was designed with 12 - 14" but the design was modified during construction to 9 - 16"/45 cal weapons. The SD class was designed from the start with 16"/45 cal main armament.

I am aware of the gun size and the design process of the North Carolina. In fact I live about 3 hours from Wilmington NC and have been lucky enough to tour the North Carolina multiple times over the years.

But if I remember correctly there was an "escalator clause" in those naval treaties which allowed guns larger than 14 inches to be put on ships if it was found that other nations were not following it. Since Japan was already breaking the treaty, the NC and South Dakota classes were technically in compliance. And issues of gun size aside, both the NC and SD classes were designed to comply with the 35,000 ton treaty limit.

The Iowas were 45,000 ton ships. But much of the extra 10,000 tons were devoted to speed. Other than the fact that the main gun barrels are slightly longer (16"/50), they don't carry any extra firepower. And I don't think the Iowas had much thicker armor than the South Dakotas (though it was thicker than the NC class).