In a Legendary Battle of the WWII battleships, who would win?

[TheMightyFavog]

The IJN Yamoto?



or

The USS Wisconsin?





BTW. The battle Is Battleship v Battleship. No Carrier support, No subs, just 1v1,

[Archae]

1. The Wisconsin.

The Yamato was bigger, but the Iowa class ships were better built.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. The submarine that found the floating death trap belonging to

the other side first.

Or the planes that suprised the ship and blew it to hell with torps before they could get a shot off.

[VOX]

16. Agreed. My vote would go to the Douglas SBD Dauntless...

The SBD could dunk a 500-lb bomb down a ship's smokestack -- and often did. It's been said that the SBD won the Battle of Midway, where they destroyed four Japanese carriers, a cruiser and 250 aircraft. This victory turned the tide of war against the Japanese in the Pacific.


http://www.angelfire.com/fm/compass/SBD.htm
In the Guadalcanal Campaign the Dauntless - operating from US carriers and from Henderson Field on the island of Guadalcanal itself - took a huge toll of Japanese shipping. SBDs sank the carrier Ryujo in the battle of the Eastern Solomons, and damaged three other carriers in the battles of Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz. In the decisive Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, 12-15 November 1942, SBDs sank the heavy cruiser Kinugasa and, supported by TBD Avengers, sank nine transports.

The Dauntless was older and slower than its Japanese opposite number, the Aichi D3A2 "Val" - but the SBD was far more resistant to battle damage, and its flying qualities perfectly suited it to its role. In particular - as its pilots testified - it was very steady in a dive.

[TheMightyFavog]

27. IIRC...

The Dauntless was preferred over its sucessor, the SB2C Helldiver. There's a reason that aircraft was dubbed Son of a Bitch, Second Class.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

38. Of course, it is ridiculous.... since the advent of the supper BB

there was not a single engagement of 2 of them against each other. Air power made them large targets in port, and subs made them large targets at sea.

They exist only for Admirals to play with and reminisce.

[TheMightyFavog]

39. They may have had little use for naval engagements,

But were they ever useful as atillery!

Heck, the USS Wisconsin experimented with an experimental UAV as a BVR spotter during Desert Storm, and after a while, the Iraqis were surrendering to this little plane, beacuse they knew that 16 inches of whoopass was going to come their way.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

40. No, not really. Only psychologically. The Naval Institute was

against re-commisioning them as gun platforms, and the only way Reagan got them back in the Navy was retrofitting T-LAMs to them. Studies, many studies, have shown that more firepower can be delivered to shore targets with air power in a sustained period of time, in all weather conditions, and without exposing vessels to dangerous land based ship killer missles.

To equal the power of one Carrier Battle Group, you needed 3 BB's and that was even the ones with the Tomahawks installed.

Tremendous waste of money.

[Khephra]

3. Too simple of a question...

What are the weather conditions? The location? The condition of both ships and the morale of the crew? What point in history? Who was the command staff?

OK, I'm just being a pain in the ass. ;-)

Wisconsin.

[Khephra]

4. Any of you play this neat little card game called...Navel Wars? IIRC

You'd have to match up shell types to ships to be able to shoot. It wasn't a collectible card game, you had everything you needed in the basic pack to play. I think it was an Avalon Hill game.

I also miss Navel War games that people who haven't been in the military can enjoy. There was a great warship game on the intellivision that still haunts me to this day.

[JVS]

13. I prefered the Avalon Hill game Victory in the pacific

I managed to find equations that let you get the stats of ships that were not included in the original VITP, such as the battlecruisers that the Lexingtons were going to be before it was decided to convert them into carriers.

[GOPisEvil]

15. I was a big Victory in the Pacific fan, too!

[JVS]

17. I still have mine

If you'd like the formulas, I'll look them up and post them sometimes.

My brother and I usually ignored the victory points and played for pure conquest. We also liked War at Sea

[GOPisEvil]

20. I think my parents still have mine in one of their closets.

I haven't played it in years. War at Sea was good too, but when I caught the bug, I was living in Hawaii, not too far from Pearl Harbor, so I was more into the Pacific.

I always liked being the Japanese and trying to win before the industrial might of the US made life impossible. Of course I won while not doing much of anything at first and letting both navies fight it out full strength, too.

[JVS]

26. We made some "what if the washington treaty had not happened" pieces

it made it a bit more even for the long drawn out wars

[Bridget Burke]

31. Navel Wars?

Like the one fought against Brazil?


(Sorry, I could not resist. At least I spared you the tattoo/piercing pictures!)

[lazarus]

5. Wisconsin

According to Chief Haele, it had better fire control.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. Assuming a Tsushima or Jutland style surface engagement...

with no submarines or aircraft, then I would say the Yamato would definitely have the edge. Its eighteen-inch guns had an advantage in range over the sixteen-inchers of the Wisconsin, and if the Japanese were able to get the range first, a well-placed broadside would blow the Wisconsin out of the water.

However, since the Wisconsin had the advantages of radar and automatic fire control, her greater speed and manouvreability, coupled with the ability to determine approximate range and bearing of a target far beyond visual distance, would most likely mean that the Yamato would (still) end up as scrap on the ocean floor, even without aircraft carriers and subs.

[necso]

7. Victory Wisconsin.

With her superior speed and radar, the Wisconsin would have detected Yamato at long range and kept her distance until darkness fell. Then using radar guided gunnery at maximum (practical) range and using every means to escape optical targeting by Yamato, the Wisconsin would have pummeled Yamato, destroying the latter's superstructure and rendering Yamato unable to target her big guns. As Yamato burned and her topside steel weakened, sooner or later Wisconsin's plunging fire would have penetrated the Yamato's vitals and exploded her magazines, if fires raging out of control didn't do this first.

[displacedyankeedem]

37. Agreed

Whisky wins because of better fire control system and radar.

[TheMightyFavog]

8. Kick for the afternoon crowd

:kick:

[Rabrrrrrr]

9. The Wisconsin, dude

You just don't screw around with Wisconsin.

The USS Illinois or USS Michigan or USS Rhode Island would get wiped, but the Wisconsin - no way. Victory every time.

If not from the guns, the cheese and beer flatulance, especially against the clean and not-used-to-bad-smells-Japanese. :-)

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. I'd take the Tirpitz over both.

[TheMightyFavog]

12. Tirpitz? take out Wisconsin? Don't make me laugh...

Wiscosnin would send her right to the bottom!

[Screaming Lord Byron]

14. Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Let's prove it!

I'll build a full-scale replica of the Tirpitz, you get the Wisconsin and we'll find out. OK? Or are you chicken?
:evilgrin:

[JVS]

18. hmmm, interesting idea

I doubt that a Bismarck could handle a Yamato

[Screaming Lord Byron]

19. No one knows what the Tirpitz could've done.

We crippled it from the air, then sank it in '44 or so. Never had a chance. Air-power finished off the Battleship era pretty damn quick.

[JVS]

24. We saw what Bismark did.

It blew the living shit out of the Hood. Even with airpower the Musashi was a pain in the ass to sink. It took something like 18 torpedos and a lot of bombs.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

25. The Hood was doomed from the start. It was, what thirty years old?

Massively outclassed by the Bismarck.

[JVS]

30. Actually the Hood was the pride of the British fleet and...

the largest battleship in the world at the time of her sinking, edging out the Bismarck by a few tons.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/germany/gersh-b/bismarck.htm
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-fornv/uk/uksh-h/hood3.htm

[Screaming Lord Byron]

32. Yeah, but outdated by the Bismarck technologically.

I believe a shell from the Bismarck's guns hit the Hood's magazine, ripping her in half.

'However, her great operational value had acted through the 1930s to prevent the Royal Navy from taking her out of service for a badly-needed modernization, and now it was too late' - yeah, that's what I was getting at.

[JVS]

33. I could see losing a protracted struggle because of being outdated...

but being somewhat outdated does not make a ship just explode on the first salvo.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

34. No. That was a design flaw.

Fair enough, I get your point there.

[ironflange]

41. Damn right it was a design flaw

What happened to the Hood also happened to several similar British battle-cruisers at Jutland in 1915. The Brits should have paid heed to this.

[JVS]

42. Yup

[Screaming Lord Byron]

21. The Bismarck wouldn't match up to the original two.

[TheMightyFavog]

22. Wisconsin had 16" guns...

And radar and advance fire control systems.
Tirpitz would be sinking scrap even before they could get a shot off.

[JVS]

28. Tirpitz had 15" guns

and the Bismarck which was identical to the Tirpitz was taken out by a King George V class with 14" guns.

To be fair though the Wisconsin wasn't ready for battle until 1944, while the Bismarck was ready in 1941. A more fair competition might be Bismarck vs. North Carolina, to make the ships more of a match of contemporaries. I'd argue the same for a Yamato match. Comparing early war equipment to late war equipment is really not fair. We wouldn't compare the Fw 190D to the Brewster Buffalo after all

[DrWeird]

11. Dude, Yamato all the way.

There's nothing that can stand up to that big ass forward laser cannon.

[BiggJawn]

23. Wisconsin. Iowa Class had it all.

18" guns don't mean a thing if you can't bring them to bear because the other guy's 16's are banging on (and through) your armour...Fire control, speed, manuverability, armour...

[Whitacre D_WI]

29. Space Battleship Yamato!

[mouse7]

35. Did the Yamato have auxillery torpedo tubes?

If it did, Yamato wins on tactics and torpedo superiority.

The Yamato's Captain would have yelled "Banzai!" and sailed straight at the Wisconsin while the Wisconsin was fritzing around trying to get perfect position for a broadside. Yamato closes, they almost blow each other apart, but Yamato gets within torpedo range before the Wisconsin can so enough damage

[TheMightyFavog]

36. No, she did not.

so much for that tactic.