No, that would be Rodney, King George V, Norfolk, Dorsetshire and the cruiser Sheffield. Ark Royal just slowed Bismarck down.
Still, having someone you know shoot you in the leg for the lulz isn't gonna invoke some good memories, even if it is Bismarck then trying to ninja vanish into France.
Reminds me, what was Ark Royal's wing comprised of?
Still, having someone you know shoot you in the leg for the lulz isn't gonna invoke some good memories, even if it is Bismarck then trying to ninja vanish into France.
Reminds me, what was Ark Royal's wing comprised of?
Well I hasn't read through everything yet, but the Swordfish she carries were known for ASW duties after better attack carrier bombers are put in service.
Still, having someone you know shoot you in the leg for the lulz isn't gonna invoke some good memories, even if it is Bismarck then trying to ninja vanish into France.
Reminds me, what was Ark Royal's wing comprised of?
From what I can tell, her air wing varied during her service life, including Blackburn Skuas, Swordfish and Fairey Fulmars.
Ark Royal was the target of the first U-boat sunk during the war U-39. The attack failed and the submarine was swarmed with destroyers. She was part of the first Hunter-Killer Group...these were abandoned after two carriers were attacked by U-boats...Ark Royal, unsuccessfully, and Courageous, successfully, only a handful of days later. This was all within the first month of the war starting in 1939.
Ark Royal eventually sank from damage by a U-boat, U-81, just about two years and two months after the incident with U-39.
Ark Royal was the target of the first U-boat sunk during the war U-39. The attack failed and the submarine was swarmed with destroyers. She was part of the first Hunter-Killer Group...these were abandoned after two carriers were attacked by U-boats...Ark Royal, unsuccessfully, and Courageous, successfully, only a handful of days later. This was all within the first month of the war starting in 1939.
Ark Royal eventually sank from damage by a U-boat, U-81, just about two years and two months after the incident with U-39.
So Warspite's warnings should actually be directed to Yuu/Ro-chan then.
No, that would be Rodney, King George V, Norfolk, Dorsetshire and the cruiser Sheffield. Ark Royal just slowed Bismarck down.
That's like saying that, for legal purposes, I didn't kill you, the wolves did. I just broke your legs, tied your arms, dropped chum all over you, and released some wolves I'd been leaving in cages to starve.
The battleships were incapable of catching Bismarck without her being crippled for them, and even if the battleships weren't there, it would have been easy to just wait to reload and rearm the Fairey Swordfish and finish off the helpless Bismarck (or even just leave her immobilized until the crew starved), but the battleship faction was desperate to prove they totally weren't completely useless relics by destroying another, similar wastrel.
That's like saying that, for legal purposes, I didn't kill you, the wolves did. I just broke your legs, tied your arms, dropped chum all over you, and released some wolves I'd been leaving in cages to starve.
The battleships were incapable of catching Bismarck without her being crippled for them, and even if the battleships weren't there, it would have been easy to just wait to reload and rearm the Fairey Swordfish and finish off the helpless Bismarck (or even just leave her immobilized until the crew starved), but the battleship faction was desperate to prove they totally weren't completely useless relics by destroying another, similar wastrel.
Technically speaking, Bismarck wouldn't have even been sailing back to France had HMS Prince of Wales not gotten one good hit in at the bow that caused Bismarck to leak a lot of fuel. She no longer had enough to go raiding, the hole slowed her a little, and he trail of oil lead to her being spotted by air.
Technically speaking, Bismarck wouldn't have even been sailing back to France had HMS Prince of Wales not gotten one good hit in at the bow that caused Bismarck to leak a lot of fuel. She no longer had enough to go raiding, the hole slowed her a little, and he trail of oil lead to her being spotted by air.
The the fuel was only part of it, this hit is often brushed off, but it was actually quite serious. It let in thousands of tons of water which heavily trimmed the bow down, her sea-keeping capability was significantly comprised and the water hammer effect of high speed sailing continued to wrench the breach wider progressively flooding new compartments over the course of the chase. She had to slow at times to try and reduce the stress and shore up the breaches.
Even ignoring the loss of fuel this hit was incapacitating, there was no sane way she would be able to operate in heavy northern Atlantic seas for an extended period down by the bow and progressively flooding like that. Every day she was out their running through breakers at speed she was making it worse and worse, she needed to be drydocked and properly patched.
ezekill said: Reminds me, what was Ark Royal's wing comprised of?
Hot Garbage by and large. Specifically the principle aircraft she operated where the Suka, Fulmar, and Swordfish. The first two were awful fighter/dive bomber hybrids that were garbage at both roles, the later largely replacing the former in 1940. The Swordfish is well known obviously, but it was basically crap too. The fact that tiny handfuls of them kept actually managing to make attacks is by no virtue of the machine itself, but rather a damning indictment of the awful anti-aircraft and fighter protection afforded to Axis ships for the first year or so of the war.
NWSiaCB said: The battleships were incapable of catching Bismarck without her being crippled for them, and even if the battleships weren't there, it would have been easy to just wait to reload and rearm the Fairey Swordfish and finish off the helpless Bismarck (or even just leave her immobilized until the crew starved), but the battleship faction was desperate to prove they totally weren't completely useless relics by destroying another, similar wastrel.
Battleships probably actually weren't useless in 1940 and 1941, and not even in 1943 really. Not as augmentation to carriers or when operating with effective land based air cover anyway. They only became genuinely mostly obsolete in late 44-45 and even then only because the USN was god-mode at that point and the target ships were usually naked of air cover. Up until 1944 no one really had the kind of massive carrier air strikes needed to actually directly stop a large capital fleet, actually even by 1944 it's debatable if even the USN had that capability.
If it did it was only because said fleet had no worthwhile air cover and terrible anti-aircraft firepower.
The only way to assure a halt to an enemy fleets forward progress was to put a surface force in it's way. This was something seen over and over, air attacks could disorient and attrition a surface force, but only the most overwhelming lopsided mass raids against basically unprotected targets could actually produce annihilating results, and if the enemy was approaching an objective at night the carriers were almost worthless until very late in the war. That being the case if the enemy was coming at you with battleships in such conditions and you didn't have your own, well now what?
Air attack also actually tended to get LESS effective on a per unit basis as the war progressed. As ship defenses and tactics improved the days when half a dozen basically unsupported aircraft could possibly get in among a fleet and actually inflict some kind of damage rapidly waned. Particularly against the USN there were a number of instances in 1943-44 were the Japanese launched raids that in the early part of 1942 would have been considered quite large and potentially devastating but were completely chewed up by fairly small fleets. The Kamikaze is another example, these attacks had a much higher hit rate then conventional attack and yet even with the Japanese throwing in thousands of them, they could not dislodge the US fleet or sink large vessels.
Basically against a fleet with air cover and good anti-aircraft capability air attack loses a majority of it's power, even large raids couldn't be counted on to inflict crippling damage to the formation as a whole. If confronted by such a force and without a comparable surface force of your own, your only real option would be be to pull back and try to pick at it until you exhausted your aircraft. In some situations this might be viable, in many others it wouldn't be.
Part of the reason the WWII setting is so interesting in naval terms is because of this, aircraft were powerful, but they hadn't attained the overpowering dominance of naval tactics they would later on with the advent of guided weapons and missiles (which are in many ways just small pilot-less planes). Armored gun ships still had a place in the 40s.
Hot Garbage by and large. Specifically the principle aircraft she operated where the Suka, Fulmar, and Swordfish. The first two were awful fighter/dive bomber hybrids that were garbage at both roles, the later largely replacing the former in 1940. The Swordfish is well known obviously, but it was basically crap too. The fact that tiny handfuls of them kept actually managing to make attacks is by no virtue of the machine itself, but rather a damning indictment of the awful anti-aircraft and fighter protection afforded to Axis ships for the first year or so of the war.
Battleships probably actually weren't useless in 1940 and 1941, and not even in 1943 really. Not as augmentation to carriers or when operating with effective land based air cover anyway. They only became genuinely mostly obsolete in late 44-45 and even then only because the USN was god-mode at that point and the target ships were usually naked of air cover. Up until 1944 no one really had the kind of massive carrier air strikes needed to actually directly stop a large capital fleet, actually even by 1944 it's debatable if even the USN had that capability.
If it did it was only because said fleet had no worthwhile air cover and terrible anti-aircraft firepower.
The only way to assure a halt to an enemy fleets forward progress was to put a surface force in it's way. This was something seen over and over, air attacks could disorient and attrition a surface force, but only the most overwhelming lopsided mass raids against basically unprotected targets could actually produce annihilating results, and if the enemy was approaching an objective at night the carriers were almost worthless until very late in the war. That being the case if the enemy was coming at you with battleships in such conditions and you didn't have your own, well now what?
Air attack also actually tended to get LESS effective on a per unit basis as the war progressed. As ship defenses and tactics improved the days when half a dozen basically unsupported aircraft could possibly get in among a fleet and actually inflict some kind of damage rapidly waned. Particularly against the USN there were a number of instances in 1943-44 were the Japanese launched raids that in the early part of 1942 would have been considered quite large and potentially devastating but were completely chewed up by fairly small fleets. The Kamikaze is another example, these attacks had a much higher hit rate then conventional attack and yet even with the Japanese throwing in thousands of them, they could not dislodge the US fleet or sink large vessels.
Basically against a fleet with air cover and good anti-aircraft capability air attack loses a majority of it's power, even large raids couldn't be counted on to inflict crippling damage to the formation as a whole. If confronted by such a force and without a comparable surface force of your own, your only real option would be be to pull back and try to pick at it until you exhausted your aircraft. In some situations this might be viable, in many others it wouldn't be.
Part of the reason the WWII setting is so interesting in naval terms is because of this, aircraft were powerful, but they hadn't attained the overpowering dominance of naval tactics they would later on with the advent of guided weapons and missiles (which are in many ways just small pilot-less planes). Armored gun ships still had a place in the 40s.
The Faiery Swordfish was actually capable of night operations as early as 1940, thanks specificaly to its being a big, fat, slow biplane that could actually carry radar much earlier in the war than any other naval aircraft. (And I don't believe there was effective radar-guided AA on any German ship at that time, either.) This, in turn, provided it with its "golden age" of opportunity to be the only planes in the sky (at least at sea) at that time, and made the Swordfish vastly more effective than it had any real right to be since it could launch torpedo attacks almost completely unmolested, even into enemy home ports like Taranto.
This is also exactly why it would have been safer and easier to just launch more planes at Bismarck, even if it meant launching at night. The Bismarck had failed to down even a single attacking torpedo bomber, which as even a concept would essentially become obsolete by the end of the war. By contrast, the British were risking quite a lot more actually putting their battleships in harm's way when it would already take nothing short of a miracle to salvage Bismarck at that point, anyway.
The point I was making was about taking unnecessary risk to "avenge their HONOUR!" than any sort of argument that people should just scrap all battleships at the start of the war, which seems to be what you're arguing against.
But still, yes, this "Golden Age" of functionally invincible biplane bombers was short-lived, but that doesn't really argue against anything I said. Air power more and more dominated naval battles as time went on even in the short timeframe of the war (even if you discount the last two "it's all over but the crying" years where Allied naval and air supremacy were basically uncontested) simply because, sure, the individual contribution of a single aircraft diminished, but the number of aircraft being thrown at the enemy just increased over time to make that moot (at least, on the Allied side). Inversely,
And while yes, there are a small handful of really famous WW2 battles involving battleships, they're that famous exactly because there were so few actual battles between big-gun battleships in the whole war compared to the almost incessant air battles, submarine warfare, and operations like Tokyo Express runs. It just becomes the problem of nobody covering the car crashes, but passenger jet crashes are front-page news for weeks. There's even less when you discount the laughably lopsided battles like the butchering at Surigao Straight(... which was also the only part of Leyte Gulf NOT determined by either airpower or submarines). The hunt for the Bismarck is so famous and talked about because it was the only "good battleship fight" of WW2 aside from "They have battleships TOO?! Fuck this shit, I'm outta here!" as soon as Scharnhorst and Gneisnau found actual enemy battleships, "They have battleships TOO?! Fuck this shit, I'm outta here! Part 2" of Cape Matapan (also functionally determined by airpower), or "oh shit, what happened to the lights?!" of the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. There just aren't any good "stand up fights" or "Kantai Kessen" of battleship-to-battleship battles unmolested by airpower determining the course of the battle or embarrassing technical failures undercutting the message of giant, powerful steel behemoths. In fact, just glancing at it, the Kantai Kessen page on Wikipedia lays it out in Admiral Yamamoto's words (albiet translated) that the age of the battleship was rapidly passing.
I heard the rumour that Ark Royal is coming - if you lay a hand on that child, I'LL KILL YOU!!!Ark Royal is coming?You're the one raising your hand there, dummkopf!!!But why are you getting so afraid, Yuu dechi...?