Posted on 04/04/2016 6:03:35 AM PDT by C19fan
In the early 1940s, the U.S. Navy still expected to need huge, first rate battleships to fight the best that Japan and Germany had to offer. The North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa-class battleships all involved design compromises.
The Montanas, the last battleships designed by the U.S. Navy, would not.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
The proposed Montana-class battlewagons appear in those depictions to be about the same size as the Japs’ Yamato & Musashi battleships.
Good thing the Navy continued its by necessity forced conversion to aircraft carriers. A flattop not only carries its own air defenses but projects them onto enemy targets.
IIRC, the Jap battleships without air cover didn’t last long under Navy air attack.
Also, they were designed to keep the British in line. People forget just how prominent the British empire was at the time. The Montana’s were canceled after the US knew Britain was broke.
And there was the Alaska Class of battle cruisers that were designed and built during WWII. The USS Alaska and Guam were actually launched, while the Guam was never completed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska-class_cruiser
Since the late 60's the US has not had a steel mill that can produce armor plating of sufficient thickness to build a BB
> We were not the least bit concerned about the British Navy.
Admiral King, for one, deeply mistrusted the motives of the British.
> Since the late 60’s the US has not had a steel mill that can produce armor plating of sufficient thickness to build a BB
These days, I suspect that homogeneous slabs of steel wouldn’t be used as the armor. More likely it would be something like that used on M1 tanks.
Given current trends, in a few more years the US won't have a steel mill.
Given current trends, in a few more years the US won’t have a navy.
“Admiral King, for one, deeply mistrusted the motives of the British.”
“Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, too, despised the Brits with a white hot hatred. He believed that they were playing the US for suckers and treated the US like mules to fund, recover, and defend their failing overseas empire that they lost to the Imperial Japanese.
Based upon the revealed future planning by the globalist oligarchy, there will not be a Republic called America. we will live under some variant of a ‘North American Union’. We the people are no longer the sovereigns of this nation, we just haven’t realized it yet.
Very true.
I would trade Alaska and Guam for Kentucky and Illinois and get all six of the Iowas in the war.
As far as the Montana's, while my inner Battleship geek always will love them. They just were not practical compared to getting more Essex class carriers in the war.
We wound up being reliant on the Brits for air cover in Okinawa because they built their carriers with armored decks and we didn’t, making our CV’s much more vulnerable to Kamikaze attacks.
Yep their cry after a suicide attack was man the brooms to sweep the crashed plan it parts overboard.
The North Carolina, South Dakota, and Iowa-class battleships all involved design compromises.Battleship design was restricted under the Washington Naval Treaty. Reportedly, upon reading out the proposal, there was a moment of dead silence, then the roomful of negotiators and diplomats burst into a thunderous ovation. And it worked as a way to avoid an arms race, I mean, other than World War II.
And they were correct, but let’s let bygones be bygone, not least because we’ll miss the British after they vanish in a generation or so.
“Vinegar Joe” Stilwell, too, despised the Brits with a white hot hatred. He believed that they were playing the US for suckers and treated the US like mules to fund, recover, and defend their failing overseas empire that they lost to the Imperial Japanese.“Admiral King, for one, deeply mistrusted the motives of the British.”Yes, and what did that get us? Eisenhower reportedly said that one way to have ended the war earlier would have been to have shot Admiral King, whose excuse for not taking ASW advice from the Royal Navy was that he was preoccupied with the Pacific theater. We didn’t initially use the convoy system - and the Kriegsmarine sank US 300 ships in the first nine months - for a loss of zero submarines.
IMHO it is pretty hard to argue that deconstruction of the British Empire was a great service to humanity. The question always is, “Compared to what?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.