Mk16G = 12" / 50 mark 8 naval gun or 8"/55 RF Mark 16

Weber's comment about bringing a BC(P) to the party reminds me of the historical anaologies.

The 12" / 50 guns developed for the Alaska BCs are in my opinion somewhat analogous to the Mk-16G. These guns were a consequence of radar range finding technology and superior ballistics computers that made long range gunnery practical. The fact that WW1 era capitol ships had very limited gun elevation compared to the newer warships illustrates these technological advances. The 12"/50 guns were capable of destroying almost any ship afloat. This included all of the legacy capitol ships from WW 1 and the intermediate caliber BCs that were built during the interwar era.

A lot of folks had commented that the US should have simply built more Iowa class ships which did not cost much more than the Alaskas. However; the convoluted production process of the 12" gun dramatizes the fact that capacity to manufacture 16" guns at the USN arsenals was maxed out. The smaller 12" guns could be outsourced to private sector factories.

The concept for the Alaskas was developed at a time when the aircraft carrier had not yet demonstrated its dominance. The USN was then confronted with the possibility of confronting not just the Japanese navy but the German Navy, the Italian navy and may be captured ships if Great Britain fell. With production capacity of 16" guns maxed out, the 12" gun Alaska's were a logical ship to supplement the 16" gun battleships.

Of course another possible and perhaps fitting analogie is the 8"/55 RF Mark 16 which was mounted on the Des Moines class cruisers. The fact that a variant of this gun was also mounted on the USS Hull destroyer is an interesting analogy to the Rolland DD in the Honorverse. The fact that the RMN has DDs, CAs and BCs armed with the same missile has obvious logistical and tactical advantages. Witness the defeat at Hypatia which could have been avoided if the Saggy Bs had been Saggy Cs.

Note to fleet admirals, try to deploy the Mk-16 armed combatants Rolland, Saganami C, Nike BC and Agememnon BC(P) in homogeneous greoups rather than with other warships with shorter ranged missiles. Dragging along ships with shorter ranged missiles just gets your ass kicked.

I understand that Weber has suggested that the Nike is analogous to an Iowa BB. I disagree. The Iowas could be accurately dsscribed as battlecruisers. However; the Iowas were armed with 16" guns that were the equal of any BB armament of the day including the 18" guns mounted on Japan's Yamamoto class BBs. While it would be comforting to have a Kentucky class BB to go up against a Yamamoto, the Iowas were not outclassed. An Iowa would have eaten the Bismark or the Tirpitz for breakfast. As good as an Nike is, and can not go up against an SD(P) or even a hypothetical SD armed with MDMs.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Weber's comment about bringing a BC(P) to the party reminds me of the historical anaologies.

The 12" / 50 guns developed for the Alaska BCs are in my opinion somewhat analogous to the Mk-16G. These guns were a consequence of radar range finding technology and superior ballistics computers that made long range gunnery practical. The fact that WW1 era capitol ships had very limited gun elevation compared to the newer warships illustrates these technological advances. The 12"/50 guns were capable of destroying almost any ship afloat. This included all of the legacy capitol ships from WW 1 and the intermediate caliber BCs that were built during the interwar era.

A lot of folks had commented that the US should have simply built more Iowa class ships which did not cost much more than the Alaskas. However; the convoluted production process of the 12" gun dramatizes the fact that capacity to manufacture 16" guns at the USN arsenals was maxed out. The smaller 12" guns could be outsourced to private sector factories.

The concept for the Alaskas was developed at a time when the aircraft carrier had not yet demonstrated its dominance. The USN was then confronted with the possibility of confronting not just the Japanese navy but the German Navy, the Italian navy and may be captured ships if Great Britain fell. With production capacity of 16" guns maxed out, the 12" gun Alaska's were a logical ship to supplement the 16" gun battleships.

Of course another possible and perhaps fitting analogie is the 8"/55 RF Mark 16 which was mounted on the Des Moines class cruisers. The fact that a variant of this gun was also mounted on the USS Hull destroyer is an interesting analogy to the Rolland DD in the Honorverse. The fact that the RMN has DDs, CAs and BCs armed with the same missile has obvious logistical and tactical advantages. Witness the defeat at Hypatia which could have been avoided if the Saggy Bs had been Saggy Cs.

Note to fleet admirals, try to deploy the Mk-16 armed combatants Rolland, Saganami C, Nike BC and Agememnon BC(P) in homogeneous greoups rather than with other warships with shorter ranged missiles. Dragging along ships with shorter ranged missiles just gets your ass kicked.

I understand that Weber has suggested that the Nike is analogous to an Iowa BB. I disagree. The Iowas could be accurately dsscribed as battlecruisers. However; the Iowas were armed with 16" guns that were the equal of any BB armament of the day including the 18" guns mounted on Japan's Yamamoto class BBs. While it would be comforting to have a Kentucky class BB to go up against a Yamamoto, the Iowas were not outclassed. An Iowa would have eaten the Bismark or the Tirpitz for breakfast. As good as an Nike is, and can not go up against an SD(P) or even a hypothetical SD armed with MDMs.

I never said that wasn't the case, but the Iowas were, in fact, battlecruisers, whatever their nomenclature might had said. Ten-knot speed advantage over the identically arfmed and armored South Dakota, pursed at the cost of an additional 10,000 tons of displacement, and followed up by the Montana class with a 33% increase in main battery and better armor, but reduced speed. That's a battlecruiser, whatever its navvy wants to call it.

So is the Nike which is also fully capable of defeating any other navy's wallers in an even fight.

Your point about 16" production being maxed out is probably a valid one in regard to the 12"/50 (which, BTW, was one of the best naval guns ever built). And its true that I tend to think of the Mk-23 as the 16"/50 and the Mk-16 as the 12"/50 when I'm looking for analogous weapons. the semi-auto 8" could be used as an analogy except that it had no significant range advantage over other 8" guns; it simply fired rapidly enough to be an effective weapons (which prewar 8" guns actually had some problems with, due entirely to rate of fire vis-a-vis rapid fire 6" ships like [i}Boise[/i] and the Cleveland class.)

As far as sending ships with homogeneous armaments, that's exactly what the GA would have loved to do. In fact, if you'll notice, that's what Koutic's squadron was supposed to be from the get-go. A little thing called the Yawata Strike supervened, however, and sometimes you have to send what you have rather than what you'd like to have.

That's part of this thing they call "war" and the constraints it enforces.

runsforcelery wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Weber's comment about bringing a BC(P) to the party reminds me of the historical anaologies.

The 12" / 50 guns developed for the Alaska BCs are in my opinion somewhat analogous to the Mk-16G. These guns were a consequence of radar range finding technology and superior ballistics computers that made long range gunnery practical. The fact that WW1 era capitol ships had very limited gun elevation compared to the newer warships illustrates these technological advances. The 12"/50 guns were capable of destroying almost any ship afloat. This included all of the legacy capitol ships from WW 1 and the intermediate caliber BCs that were built during the interwar era.

A lot of folks had commented that the US should have simply built more Iowa class ships which did not cost much more than the Alaskas. However; the convoluted production process of the 12" gun dramatizes the fact that capacity to manufacture 16" guns at the USN arsenals was maxed out. The smaller 12" guns could be outsourced to private sector factories.

The concept for the Alaskas was developed at a time when the aircraft carrier had not yet demonstrated its dominance. The USN was then confronted with the possibility of confronting not just the Japanese navy but the German Navy, the Italian navy and may be captured ships if Great Britain fell. With production capacity of 16" guns maxed out, the 12" gun Alaska's were a logical ship to supplement the 16" gun battleships.

Of course another possible and perhaps fitting analogie is the 8"/55 RF Mark 16 which was mounted on the Des Moines class cruisers. The fact that a variant of this gun was also mounted on the USS Hull destroyer is an interesting analogy to the Rolland DD in the Honorverse. The fact that the RMN has DDs, CAs and BCs armed with the same missile has obvious logistical and tactical advantages. Witness the defeat at Hypatia which could have been avoided if the Saggy Bs had been Saggy Cs.

Note to fleet admirals, try to deploy the Mk-16 armed combatants Rolland, Saganami C, Nike BC and Agememnon BC(P) in homogeneous greoups rather than with other warships with shorter ranged missiles. Dragging along ships with shorter ranged missiles just gets your ass kicked.

I understand that Weber has suggested that the Nike is analogous to an Iowa BB. I disagree. The Iowas could be accurately dsscribed as battlecruisers. However; the Iowas were armed with 16" guns that were the equal of any BB armament of the day including the 18" guns mounted on Japan's Yamamoto class BBs. While it would be comforting to have a Kentucky class BB to go up against a Yamamoto, the Iowas were not outclassed. An Iowa would have eaten the Bismark or the Tirpitz for breakfast. As good as an Nike is, and can not go up against an SD(P) or even a hypothetical SD armed with MDMs.

I never said that wasn't the case, but the Iowas were, in fact, battlecruisers, whatever their nomenclature might had said. Ten-knot speed advantage over the identically arfmed and armored South Dakota, pursed at the cost of an additional 10,000 tons of displacement, and followed up by the Montana class with a 33% increase in main battery and better armor, but reduced speed. That's a battlecruiser, whatever its navvy wants to call it.

So is the Nike which is also fully capable of defeating any other navy's wallers in an even fight.

Your point about 16" production being maxed out is probably a valid one in regard to the 12"/50 (which, BTW, was one of the best naval guns ever built). And its true that I tend to think of the Mk-23 as the 16"/50 and the Mk-16 as the 12"/50 when I'm looking for analogous weapons. the semi-auto 8" could be used as an analogy except that it had no significant range advantage over other 8" guns; it simply fired rapidly enough to be an effective weapons (which prewar 8" guns actually had some problems with, due entirely to rate of fire vis-a-vis rapid fire 6" ships like [i}Boise[/i] and the Cleveland class.)

As far as sending ships with homogeneous armaments, that's exactly what the GA would have loved to do. In fact, if you'll notice, that's what Koutic's squadron was supposed to be from the get-go. A little thing called the Yawata Strike supervened, however, and sometimes you have to send what you have rather than what you'd like to have.

That's part of this thing they call "war" and the constraints it enforces.

I certainly can not disagree with the argument that the Iowas were BCs compared to the Montana BBs that were never built. However; when compared to the two previous classes they gained a lot of speed and AA armament without having INFERIOR armor. They just didn't get SUPERIOR armor for that 10,000 tons of extra displacement.

Also, the 16"/50 guns on the Iowas were greatly superior to the 16"/45s on the two previous classes.

Specifications of the 16"/45

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-45_mk5.php

Specifications of the 16"/50

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Weber's comment about bringing a BC(P) to the party reminds me of the historical anaologies.

The 12" / 50 guns developed for the Alaska BCs are in my opinion somewhat analogous to the Mk-16G. These guns were a consequence of radar range finding technology and superior ballistics computers that made long range gunnery practical. The fact that WW1 era capitol ships had very limited gun elevation compared to the newer warships illustrates these technological advances. The 12"/50 guns were capable of destroying almost any ship afloat. This included all of the legacy capitol ships from WW 1 and the intermediate caliber BCs that were built during the interwar era.

A lot of folks had commented that the US should have simply built more Iowa class ships which did not cost much more than the Alaskas. However; the convoluted production process of the 12" gun dramatizes the fact that capacity to manufacture 16" guns at the USN arsenals was maxed out. The smaller 12" guns could be outsourced to private sector factories.

The concept for the Alaskas was developed at a time when the aircraft carrier had not yet demonstrated its dominance. The USN was then confronted with the possibility of confronting not just the Japanese navy but the German Navy, the Italian navy and may be captured ships if Great Britain fell. With production capacity of 16" guns maxed out, the 12" gun Alaska's were a logical ship to supplement the 16" gun battleships.

Of course another possible and perhaps fitting analogie is the 8"/55 RF Mark 16 which was mounted on the Des Moines class cruisers. The fact that a variant of this gun was also mounted on the USS Hull destroyer is an interesting analogy to the Rolland DD in the Honorverse. The fact that the RMN has DDs, CAs and BCs armed with the same missile has obvious logistical and tactical advantages. Witness the defeat at Hypatia which could have been avoided if the Saggy Bs had been Saggy Cs.

Note to fleet admirals, try to deploy the Mk-16 armed combatants Rolland, Saganami C, Nike BC and Agememnon BC(P) in homogeneous greoups rather than with other warships with shorter ranged missiles. Dragging along ships with shorter ranged missiles just gets your ass kicked.

I understand that Weber has suggested that the Nike is analogous to an Iowa BB. I disagree. The Iowas could be accurately dsscribed as battlecruisers. However; the Iowas were armed with 16" guns that were the equal of any BB armament of the day including the 18" guns mounted on Japan's Yamamoto class BBs. While it would be comforting to have a Kentucky class BB to go up against a Yamamoto, the Iowas were not outclassed. An Iowa would have eaten the Bismark or the Tirpitz for breakfast. As good as an Nike is, and can not go up against an SD(P) or even a hypothetical SD armed with MDMs.

runsforcelery wrote:I never said that wasn't the case, but the Iowas were, in fact, battlecruisers, whatever their nomenclature might had said. Ten-knot speed advantage over the identically arfmed and armored South Dakota, pursed at the cost of an additional 10,000 tons of displacement, and followed up by the Montana class with a 33% increase in main battery and better armor, but reduced speed. That's a battlecruiser, whatever its navvy wants to call it.

So is the Nike which is also fully capable of defeating any other navy's wallers in an even fight.

Your point about 16" production being maxed out is probably a valid one in regard to the 12"/50 (which, BTW, was one of the best naval guns ever built). And its true that I tend to think of the Mk-23 as the 16"/50 and the Mk-16 as the 12"/50 when I'm looking for analogous weapons. the semi-auto 8" could be used as an analogy except that it had no significant range advantage over other 8" guns; it simply fired rapidly enough to be an effective weapons (which prewar 8" guns actually had some problems with, due entirely to rate of fire vis-a-vis rapid fire 6" ships like [i}Boise[/i] and the Cleveland class.)

As far as sending ships with homogeneous armaments, that's exactly what the GA would have loved to do. In fact, if you'll notice, that's what Koutic's squadron was supposed to be from the get-go. A little thing called the Yawata Strike supervened, however, and sometimes you have to send what you have rather than what you'd like to have.

That's part of this thing they call "war" and the constraints it enforces.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:I certainly can not disagree with the argument that the Iowas were BCs compared to the Montana BBs that were never built. However; when compared to the two previous classes they gained a lot of speed and AA armament without having INFERIOR armor. They just didn't get SUPERIOR armor for that 10,000 tons of extra displacement.

Also, the 16"/50 guns on the Iowas were greatly superior to the 16"/45s on the two previous classes.

Depends in part on the range. Ironically, the 16"/45's steeper plunging trajectory at longer range made it more effective at penetrating horizontal armor at the ranges where the hits were probably going to be obtainable. Overall, you are correct. Tactically, though, there was very little to choose between the South Dakotas and the Iowas aside from their speed. They had the same armor, their main batteries had the same number of tubes and fired the same weight of shells, and Iowa's primary antiaircraft advantage was that the South Dakota herself had one less twin 5"/38 and each broadside because of the volume eaten up by her flagship facilities; the other ships of the class, all had the same 20 5"/38s Iowa did. The class had fewer 40 mm mounts (I think something like 62 as compared to 80), but they actually carried more 20 mm mounts to compensate. Now, admittedly, the 40 was a lot more effective on a gun-4-gun basis, but the total barrage they could put up was effectively the same.

The thing that relegates Iowa to battlecruisers status is that she needs to be compared to a post-Washington Treaty limitation design, on the one hand, and, on the other, usually when you increase the design tonnage of a battleship by 25% or so, the new ship is better protected than its predecessor. So in that sense, having the same armor represents a deliberate decision to sacrifice protection for speed, which is largely what differentiated a battlecruiser design from a contemporaneous battleship design.

runsforcelery wrote:The thing that relegates Iowa to battlecruisers status is that she needs to be compared to a post-Washington Treaty limitation design, on the one hand, and, on the other, usually when you increase the design tonnage of a battleship by 25% or so, the new ship is better protected than its predecessor. So in that sense, having the same armor represents a deliberate decision to sacrifice protection for speed, which is largely what differentiated a battlecruiser design from a contemporaneous battleship design.

Sure. You might steal a British phrase and call the Iowa a fully armored battlecruiser; like they called HMS Vanguard. But relative to what you'd expect of a 45,000 ton battleship that was 5 knots slower Iowa carried less armor and less firepower.

We just don't have a well known US design, contemporary to Iowa, that took that route to compare with (though I assume there are at least early design studies leading up to the Iowa that explored what the Navy thought it could get on that tonnage if they kept the speed down to 27 knots). Then Montana kind of confused the issue because the Navy, being freed of the requirement to transit the 1914 Panama Canal Locks, jumped up her planned tonnage another 40% beyond Iowa so of course she carries a lot more armor and firepower.



(Though oddly if you compare to HMS Vanguard, being of similar displacement as a couple knots slower, she doesn't seem very impressive. It's possible that a greater length of hull was armored, but her main weapons are fewer and lighter and her armor doesn't seem notable better from a simple comparison of thicknesses. Some of that is probable due to building her around existing excess turrets; but still on the face she looks unimpressive for 45,000 tons and only 30 knots - though impressive she could manage that on just 60% the shp)

Jonathan_S wrote:

runsforcelery wrote:The thing that relegates Iowa to battlecruisers status is that she needs to be compared to a post-Washington Treaty limitation design, on the one hand, and, on the other, usually when you increase the design tonnage of a battleship by 25% or so, the new ship is better protected than its predecessor. So in that sense, having the same armor represents a deliberate decision to sacrifice protection for speed, which is largely what differentiated a battlecruiser design from a contemporaneous battleship design.

Sure. You might steal a British phrase and call the Iowa a fully armored battlecruiser; like they called HMS Vanguard. But relative to what you'd expect of a 45,000 ton battleship that was 5 knots slower Iowa carried less armor and less firepower.

We just don't have a well known US design, contemporary to Iowa, that took that route to compare with (though I assume there are at least early design studies leading up to the Iowa that explored what the Navy thought it could get on that tonnage if they kept the speed down to 27 knots). Then Montana kind of confused the issue because the Navy, being freed of the requirement to transit the 1914 Panama Canal Locks, jumped up her planned tonnage another 40% beyond Iowa so of course she carries a lot more armor and firepower.



(Though oddly if you compare to HMS Vanguard, being of similar displacement as a couple knots slower, she doesn't seem very impressive. It's possible that a greater length of hull was armored, but her main weapons are fewer and lighter and her armor doesn't seem notable better from a simple comparison of thicknesses. Some of that is probable due to building her around existing excess turrets; but still on the face she looks unimpressive for 45,000 tons and only 30 knots - though impressive she could manage that on just 60% the shp)

I've got the history of the USN's battleship design studies throughout the entire inter-war period. It's fascinating, and a lot of different options were considered.

One reason I keep thinking of the Iowa as a battle cruiser is that the design was frequently described during the planning stages as a "cruiser killer," specifically intended to go out and kill the Japanese Kongo-class ships. That's one reason there were originally going to be only four of them; they were intended to match the Kongos on a ship-for-ship basis, because prewar War College games had indicated that the Japanese battlecruisers' speed would allow them to exercise a disproportionate influence on any Pacific war. (Bear in mind that the games in question predated the evolution of the carrier into a decisive weapon system.)

There were innumerable efforts to get more armor, more guns, more something into an Iowa hull, and the General Board seemed unwilling to accept for a long time that all they could get for their additional 15,000 tons was 10 more knots of speed. And to get that, they required a radically different hull form (which later proved to be a pain-in-the-butt in typical Atlantic conditions because of how wet it was forward). In other words, other critical aspects of the design were ruthlessly sacrificed in order to maintain that speed advantage, which means that it could have been argued that what they were really building was the biggest, nastiest cruisers in the world. The USN never really considered a 27-knot battleship on the Iowa's tonnage, because if they were going to build a ship armored against the 16"/50 (the US design practice was to design ships capable of standing up to their own guns), they knew it was going to have to be a lot bigger than Iowa.

Although some of the arguments put forth during the design process for the Alaskas included dealing with the Kongos and Scharnhorsts, they were really seen (in their final iteration) as 8"-inch cruiser killers and carrier escorts. That's a big part of the reason reason they were designed to resist 10" fire rather than 12" or 14" fire. Ships with guns that heavy were supposed to be dealt with by the Iowas.

The only reason that there were ultimately going to be six Iowas was because the navy was offered an additional pair of slightly improved Iowas as part of the emergency prewar program authorized by Congress. What the General Board intended to build as its next battleship class was the Montana, which was actually closer conceptually to the North Carolina/South Dakota design paradigm: speed sacrificed for armor and hitting power.

The USN's ONI was only a little more effective than the SLN's in the run-up to World War II. The North Carolina class, with a design speed of 27 knots, was considered a very fast ship when she was laid down. (She was also originally designed around a main battery of twelve 12" guns, which became 16" guns only when FDR authorized it after the 1940 elections, since he didn't want to outrage isolationist sensibilities on the run-up to those elections.)
The South Dakotas were supposed to revert to a lower maximum speed, but that was changed during the design process about the time that ONI discovered that the Japanese Nagato-class ships, which they had previously assigned a 23-knot speed, were actually capable of at least 26. (Squeezing enough power to maintain the North Carolina's maximum speed into the stubbier South Dakota hull was a non-trivial challenge, which should have warned the General Board that getting 10 more knots out of the Iowa was going to be a tonnage-expensive proposition.)

The Nagatos' top speed became the benchmark for the battleships which the USN did not consider a specialized, high-speed design, which helps to explain the Montana's designed top speed and why the USN was prepared to accept a battleship (whose capabilities had been specified, bear in mind, before the US entered the war) that was slower than its carrier fleet. The Montana's primary job was seen as killing enemy battleships, not screening friendly aircraft carriers, and its design speed was actually part of the reason for killing the class's construction postwar because it was less well-suited to carrier escort than the otherwise less capable Iowa.

Vanguard, unlike Montana, was intended to escort carriers (which the royal navy still had some of, at the time), which is why she was designed for a 30-knot speed. And you're right that the economy measure of building her around existing turrets is one reason that the ship her size actually mounted fewer guns than Iowa and that those guns fired markedly inferior armor piercing shells, since they didn't have the equivalent of the USN's "super-heavy" shells. On the other hand, Vanguard's final design incorporated a lot of lessons which had been learned about things like radar, improved fire control and plotting, etc., so all lot of her improvements were "hidden under the hood" and aren't really evident when you simply lay out armor, armament, and speed.

Very interesting discussion. I am going to bookmark it.

I am compelledto concede Weber's point that the Iowas are BCs rather than BBs. However; I am also compelled to argue that they were the right shipnto build. The USN wanted the Iowas to be carrier escorts so they had to have the speed of carriers. The USN might not have figured it out yet, but surface ships NEEDED to have 30+ knot speed to successfully attack bases defended by aircraft. They needed to be able to close during the night when few aircraft could fly, launch a strike, then get out before they were counter attacked.

The Montanas were more powerful battleships but their lower speed would have made them LESS survivable in the Pacific war.

A great book to read is BATTLESHIP AT WAR by Ian Musicant. This book made me a fan of Admiral Willis Lee.

runsforcelery wrote:The North Carolina class, with a design speed of 27 knots, was considered a very fast ship when she was laid down. (She was also originally designed around a main battery of twelve 12" guns, which became 16" guns only when FDR authorized it after the 1940 elections, since he didn't want to outrage isolationist sensibilities on the run-up to those elections.)
The South Dakotas were supposed to revert to a lower maximum speed, but that was changed during the design process about the time that ONI discovered that the Japanese Nagato-class ships, which they had previously assigned a 23-knot speed, were actually capable of at least 26. (Squeezing enough power to maintain the North Carolina's maximum speed into the stubbier South Dakota hull was a non-trivial challenge

Wasn't that twelve 14" guns, not twelve 12"?
My understanding is the North Carolina was designed for, and armored against, 14" guns and then FDR escalated her to 16" guns (same armor though; making her unbalanced).

South Dakota then kept the same guns but added armor to be "balanced" against her own 16" guns. (And then the super-heavy shell you mentioned came out and she was unbalanced again - hence the much larger Montana)