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Isn't it because of the demise of the British Empire battleship HMS Prince of Wales and British Empire Battlecruiser HMS Repulse and the IJN disaster the Battle of Midway
Are the Essex-class ships back in the game? Because from what I know, they were removed a long time ago and still haven't returned. EDIT: I can confirm that the Essex-class is not in the game. Ryan, your statement was in error.
The US wartime economy was astonishing but it was not infinite. The Admirals in charge could have built the Essex class carriers or the Montana class battleships. The Admirals chose wisely.
Some of the long lead-time items for the Kentucky and Illinois were constructed ... 16"/50cal gun barrels. These were warehoused along with the spares for the other four Iowa class ships.
I mean I concur I mean the war had broke out in 1941 for the United States and at that time industry was catching up with war efforts and demands and simply put as mr. Szymanski as stated that priorities were four different vessels and those battleships were obsolete in the strictest sense
It was the CVBs (Midway class) that the Montana's were canceled for. They began to collect steel to build Montana but their wasn't enough steel or slip ways/ building docks to go around.
Another reason…the number of sailors needed to staff battleships. I had read that the Alaska Class big cruisers required almost as many sailors as a battleship. This was among the several reasons why the 2 barely used Alaska class ships were placed in reserve so quickly after the War ended. Montana class BB would have required huge crews.
Especially given that by 1944-45 the US Army was pretty hungry for manpower. It makes a lot of sense to not spend manpower crewing a battleship you don't really need to begin with.
Additionally, they used almost as much fuel, and you could get 2½ broadsides from an Iowa for less than a single broadside from an Alaska. Maybe even 3. Additionally, the Alaskas, with 4 screws and a single rudder handled like pigs. The Iowas and Midway-class carriers could out-turn them.
Surpringly, only about a hundred more crew, in Flagship configuration, as planned. Remember, the 4th gun itself only required 80 men, the WWII complement for an Iowa was 2,700 men. The Montana was planned to have half the 40mm guns of an Iowa.
Japanese has already perfected their naval aviation. they were even the first nation on Earth to design Aircraft Carriers ground up rather than converting existing ships.
The US had built ten fast battleships by the end of the war, the British five (six if you include HMS Vanguard completed in 1946), add the Richelieu and the Allies had a vast overmatch of modern battleships over the Axis. No need for Montanas, Lions or Alsaces.
I think something that's also overlooked is the labor and skill of the Craftsman involved there just weren't as many qualified workers either to build such an extensive dedication of resources at that point in time at least battleships required greater degrees of engineering and tooling than an aircraft carrier by comparison and it just didn't work out in how many hands they had to hold the Hammers
@@alanstevens1296 oh without a doubt had the United States rolled around into 1946 with everything else staying the same no atomic bombs for would have going on for at least one more year Illinois and Kentucky would have been completed and I still believe the Montana's demise was assured after the Battle of Midway Profoundly really the only way The Montanas get built if the war doesn't break out for the United States initially and the Battle of Midway does not occur in some timeline continuity if possible but really for them to have seen any service whatsoever Ryan has said this multiple times on his channel they would have had to have their kills lady immediately after Pearl Harbor and Terriers we nowhere More instrumental and I can only imagine if we had actually constructed them and I would have liked to have seen them constructed that would have been fewer aircraft carriers by as much as maybe 10 or 12
@@rohanthandi4903 The USS Nevada would like a word with two of your bombs. Bikini atoll, Operation Crossroads. The Nevada survive both detonations. A 23Kt air burst and a 27Kt subsurface burst about 90 feet below the lagoon surface.
@@garygrant91 large caliber guns are insignificant compared to the ability to destroy nations and cities, thought that was obvious. Also sure the hull survived the initial blast but any crew would’ve suffered 100 % mortality lol
@@rohanthandi4903 I wont argue against that, but we cannot use nuclear and thermonuclear weapons for everything. If we could, no nuclear nation would need anything but those weapons. Battleships were created with a primary purpose of fleet actions and a secondary purpose of shore bombardment. At the time they were developed nothing could do either job better. By the time of WWII carrier air wings had become the best for fleet actions. The battleship is still the best at shore bombardment, there are other options that are almost as good but also more versatile. While the age of battleships is over, that does not mean James Leyda's is false. They are truely one of the most awesome and beautiful ships to ever exist.
Something else that has to be considered is the manpower drawdown that begins to loom as the outcome of the war becomes apparent. The Navy begins to rapidly decommission the battleship fleet right after the war's end. As Japan entered the final stages of the war, with her navy all-but-eliminated and airpower dissipated, even the oldest battleships like Arkansas and New York get shifted over the Pacific. The Navy just doesn't NEED that many battleships...especially new ones. After "Operation Magic Carpet" gets finished, all the old battleships start getting disposed of (Arkansas, Nevada, New York to Operation Crossroads), the others get sent to either the scrapper or mothballs...even the "new" ones like the 2 North Carolinas and the 4 South Dakotas get taken out of service due to manpower shortages. So, in addition to the material shortages and the slipway shortages, the Navy knew that the manpower was going to be limited and the BB's were too manpower intensive to keep going. (Even the carriers got hit with this, many being taken out of service at war's end as well...)
Had the pleasure of writing about shipbuilding economics for a class a while back. it's really exciting hearing those concepts I've read about be discussed here.
Because by the time they would be finished the war would be over and aircraft carriers had already surpassed battleships as the center peice of naval power. Pitty, i always always wondered a 1980s refit Montana would look like. 🤔
I've made speculative lego models in the past. What I came up with was basically a bigger Iowa Refit. Depending on how many 5" gut turrets you delete and what year of technology you install, there may be room for more Tomahawk boxes or perhaps VLS. I think 4 phalanxes would be plenty. There may be room for Sea Sparrow to be far enough from the 16" guns to survive shockwaves. The reduced crew space requirement and reduced 5" magazine requirement also allows lots of possibilities for internal updates/changes.
We can resurrect the Montana class for the 3rd world war. 😂 make it nuclear powered with EMP shielding and 20 inch main guns that can shoot hypersonic rockets
@@Ahnenerbe1944 Most US military hardware has been EMP shielded for 50 years. But otherwise, sounds cool. You could easily fit a couple hundred VLS cells on a Montana if you lose Turret 3 or 4 and redesign the superstructure. Then throw in some of the launchers for the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile that’s replacing the guns on the Zumwalts. The problem would be getting the AEGIS radars enough electric power and making them stand up to the gun blast.
I think modern historians sometimes underestimate the effect of seeing Musashi and Yamato sunk by aircraft with relative ease. The Navy's Big Gun Mafia was ebbing in popularity and prestige, while the Brown Shoes waxed in influence. There is a good chance any Montana's that had been started on the ways in late 1943 or '44 would have been scrapped before completion anyway, even if the armor plates had been available earlier. The concept of the super battleship having been discredited by the proofs of their vulnerability.
Yup. After the British lost the Prince of Wales and Repulse early on in the war, and then the US taking out the two Jappinise BB's we saw the carriers where the wave of the future.
100% agree. Even if you allow a wide interpretation of "relative ease", sending 70k tons of anything to the bottom (twice!) is an undisputable success.
The Battleship in WW2, by the end, was not a ship killing weapon so much. They can deliver more ordinance than 20 squadrons of aircraft in the first hour of an assault. Its naval artillery. Given that 80% of the worlds population lives with in 100 miles from the coast having a mobile artillery piece that can sit off shore and pummel your port is still a valuable weapon. We have nothing that can compare today. Shells are cheap by comparison to smart weapons. With radar and lidar acquisition you could build a ballistic weapon that is just as accurate as a smart bomb but it could deliver continuous bombardment, for days, to a region for a half the price. Every smart missile costs us 10's of millions of dollars. Even manned to 2500 people a battleship would just cost us about $400,000 a day. If we really get into it with a force like China or Russia we will be looking at putting a battleship-ish type warship in the theater just to save money on missiles.
It’s always been my understanding that the main thing with the Montana’s was available build space and the anticipated speed of the build. They estimated that they could build the first 2 Midways substantially faster than they could build the first 2 Montana’s. So they wanted those 2 Midways done before they tied up the big docks with the longer build Montana’s. Anticipated speed of build was really the big thing. The big slipways were too precious a resource to tie up for too many years.
Yeah, the other thing was the looming end of hostilities. The montanas were not going to complete until 47, 48 at the latest. The Midways could have been completed by the time of operation Downfall(~5 months after the end of the war, the spring of 46). The fact of the matter was that the montanas were never going to see a lick of combat, and the US navy went "Why are we building a ship that isn't going to war, when we can build a ship that can go to war?"
@@novatopaz9880 True. The Midway herself was days away from service when the war ended. She was a a functional warship by ‘45. I forget how far from service the FDR was at that point.
@@andrewtaylor940 The FDR was commissioned in October so while it would had missed Operation Olympic it could have been available for Operation Coronet in the spring.
I had lunch on Saturday looking out at a coastline that was filled with liberty ships being constructed in the 40’s. Completing one every few days. The instant growth of the shipbuilding industry to support wwii must have been amazing to see, but as stated that ability wasn’t infinite.
The improvements of the torpedo bombers, and of the torpedoes in themselves, doomed the big gun warship. As Drach has said: bombs and shells can tear a ship apart, they can burn it to the waterline. But ships only *sink* if you poke holes below the waterline and the water comes in. Armor steel, drydock slots, gun barrels *delayed* the Montanas. But torpedoes *cancelled* them.
@@alexwood5425 no exact idea but engines, armor and guns were built before any hulls. I mean the USN had several spare 16in 50cal Mk.2 guns from the planned South Dakota 1920 class Battleships and Lexington class battlecruisers. Yet only like the Lexington class battlecruisers had any hulls built by the time the WNT was signed
I disagree that the torpedoe bomber was the deathknell of the battleship. Quite frankly, blowing them to bits with dive bombers proved quite adequate. Mission kill a ship, and that pretty much ruins it's utility. Submarines were getting better, and guided missiles were being developed! Guided missiles are what really killed the battleship. Much smaller, cheaper ships could now carry armament equal to, or more deadly than a battleship's big guns.
@@mahbriggs My reasoning is as follows: ship launched missiles were not operational until the 50s The Montanas were cancelled years before surface ship launched anti-ship missiles became operational or proven. Operational missiles during ww2 were launched from aircraft. They were flying torpedoes and depended on aircraft/carrier development. Had mission kill been adequate in the 40s, many more ships would have been captured. But both Yamatos were bombed first, no quarter was given, and then hit by torpedoes UNTIL they floundered. Respectfully, we disagree. 👍
@ricardokowalski1579 Yes, at the end of WWII, torpedo bombers were still viable, but only barely. Look how fast they faded away after the war. We disagree only to an extent. Yes, effective ship launched missiles only were developed in the 1950s, but effective air launched missiles were available sooner. Destroy the upper works of a modern battleship, and it is mission killed. It can neither effectively defend itself nor attack other ships. There was little need for a new battleship after the war, and Ryan explains why it wasn't built during the war. After the war, the US, the British, and the French were the only nations with modern battleships, and they were allies. And while they proved useful for shore bombardment, there just wasn't much other use for them. Carrier air power and submarines, especially after the development of nuclear powered submarines, now ruled the sea! The resources spent on a new battleship, even one as capable as the Montana, would have been better spent on upgrading the many carriers we already had, or building newer and bigger carriers, and nuclear-powered submarines, which is what we did.
The really amazing thing about the switch from battleships to air power is how an institution as rigid as the military was able to adjust over such a short period of time. It’s fascinating from an organizational behavioral standpoint, I can’t think of any organization that large that has made such a fundamental shift that quickly.
But contrast that statement with respect to battleship construction, with how long it took the Navy to acknowledge the problems with the frequently defective torpedoes that American submarines used in the first half of the war.
As much as a Battleship fan that I am, the Navy made the right decision. We needed mor fleet and escort carriers and other smaller ships. We had enough BBs both modern like New Jersey and near obsolete like Texas, to handle shore bombardment which was virtually the only likely scenerio that they would likely use their main armorment for.
I've always thought the battleship had become somewhat obsolete by 1945, and instead of the once-anticipated battleship v. battleship duels, they were relegated to escorting the fast carrier groups. This role was performed admirably, as well as shore bombardment of Japan, and later 'Nam. They are magnificent machines of great beauty, speed, grace, and power. I'm glad that a number of them are preserved today for us to admire. I do wish, though, that at least one Montana class had been built.
Depends on what is meant by "obsolete." The ones in service were still useful enough to continue to maintain and upgrade them, but the cost of building more new hulls was no longer the best way to use manpower and material that could be spent on carriers.
The time required to build the guns was often longer than the time required to build hulls. The Montana class COULD use 16"/50 (12 instead of 9). However, an Essex can deliver 10 times the weight of ordinance, at 15 times the range. Properly sequenced, two squadrons of fighters can escort the bombers, keeping a squadron back to protect carriers. Guns are pretty good at shore bombardment, but typically 5% (or less) hit the opposing battleships. Further than 23 miles inland, you need airstrikes, NOT naval guns.
Another reason was probably that the BB was dangerously obsolete by 1944. Only one or two BB vs BB actions happened in 1944. Except for shore bombardment and AA defense, BBs were virtually useless. And no enemy navy had anything close to the number of BBs needed to take on the BBs of the USN.
Or, for that matter. the allies in general. They started the war with a massive hull number advantage over the axis, one that was only maintained, then further widened once the united states joined.
@@Destroyer_V0 The Axis could and did gain local naval superiority as the Japanese did for the first 6 months of the war in the Eastern Pacific and the Indian ocean. Two entire fleets, one Allied and one Japanese went down in the Solomon's by the end of 1943. To win the Allies had to make sure the Axis powers could not get naval superiority anywhere. Hence the enormous naval expansion. The US built 10 BBs. No other nation built that many. The US also built over 100 aircraft carriers, more than all of the other nations combined. By 1945 the USN and RN had naval supremacy virtually everywhere on the planet.
And really, the way they bombarded was flawed, anyway. They fired in close, fuzed for impact detonations. The rounds should've been lobbed in from high angles delay-fuzed to penetrate more deeply, because the bursts on the surface had very little effect on the Japanese fortifications, all told.
I don't play World of Warships on PC, but I do play World of Warships Blitz on my phone. I generally play with the Richelieu. I like the way her main battery is arranged, as I can fire my full broadside at an enemy ship while heading straight at them. Very helpful when chasing somebody down. With Iowa, I'd have to approach at the right angle if I wanted to fire my full broadside. Her secondary battery, on the other hand, is just bad IMO.
I play legends and the Richelieu is one of the worst tier 7 battleships. It is very weak to HE rounds and every cruiser likes to spam HE plus it's guns are very inaccurate. Ironically It's sister ship Jean Bart is considered one of the best due to it's reload booster and better reload in general. Very few players have it though since it was a campaign ship a very long time ago and it hasn't returned since.
My recollection of history indicates that there was a view the US was winning the war in 1944-45 and there was a realization that the BB was no longer 'Queen of the Seas'. Also, BBs were expensive to build but somewhat dependent on the sale of war bonds. With the end of the war, most warships that were started were canceled outright, including KENTUCKY and ILLINOIS. As you mentioned, in 1945 only about 7,000 tons of armor were designated for BB construction, the same as pre-war. I imagine most of this armor plate went to KENTUCKY as not much had been done on the ILLINOIS. The USN budget after September 2 was seriously reduced to the point it was hard to properly maintain the 'mothball fleet' due to paucity of funding.
@@HoldenOversoul The hull for the New Jersey was laid down in 1940 and was launched in 1942. The hull for the Kentucky was laid down in 1942 and was not launched (uncompleted) until 1950. It is obvious that the construction of the Kentucky was a very low priority.
@@chac65 Ok, what's your point? The post I was replying to stated that Illinois and Kentucky were cancelled outright. All in caps, ILLINOIS and KENTUCKY cancelled outright. Cancelled outright and low priority are the same thing?
@@HoldenOversoul My overall point is that the USA and the rest of the world stopped building battleships (the Montana, etc.) because the raid on Taranto, Pearl Harbour, the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales, and early naval battles between the US and Japan demonstrated their obsolescence.
The Montana's were not designed to be able to pass thru the Panama Canal and Slower than the Iowa's, so those two factors were surely important considerations in cancelling the class. In World of Warships I primarily play Arkansas Beta (USS Arkansas (BB-33)), West Virginia '41, USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and USS New Mexico (BB-40).
I feel pretty confident that the US Navy saw the writing on the wall, or rather the oil slick on the sea, when HMS Prince of Wales (53) was sunk the way it was. I believe the PoW succumbing to an Aircraft Carrier was one of the primary factors for why the US Navy kept bumping a start of the Montana line like they did. Also, the numbers presented validate my hypothesis, in that more and more armor plating was being allocated for CVs and their escorts.
@@wesleyphillips7744 Land based, but aircraft with a handful of bombs and torpedoes nonetheless. I'm not fully informed but was Bismarck the only big ship that shot at PoW?
It’s kinda cool being able to see the navy’s priorities change during the war through armour designation .. you can literally see the death of battleships through their armour designation of allotted amount .. battleships construction died between 1943-44 and never recovered
Plus, repaired and rehabilitated older battleships (and those salvaged from Pearl Harbor) were coming online for surface and shore bombardment usage. Although not fast battleships, they were plenty useful. Modernized with radar, improved torpedo blisters, dual 5-inch gun mounts, 20mm, and 40 mm antiaircraft weapons, these were awesome and useful battlewagons. This allowed the fast BBs to stick with the carrier task forces.
You see similar issues with German tank production resulted in over hardened (brittle) steel going on the front and mild steel being used on the rear because that is what they had. Can you imagine haw many tanks could have been produced with the steel used on Bismarck and Tirpitz at 55,000 tones each?
Bismark and Tirpitz had already been completely years before the German tank industry started making "real" tanks. When Tirpitz was launched a Pz.Fpfw. II was state of the art and the PzKfw III was just getting approval for production.
He asked earlier about if interested in a video on the shipbuilding capability - why 2 Battleships per year. Yes, please, (beg). And your thought on the current warship building capability in our country.
If Halsey left TF 34 to guard the San Bernadino Strait we would have at least finished Illinois and Kentucky because the largest naval battle in history would have been primarily a surface engagement and we would looked at battleships differently then we do now.
The possible battle of San Bernardino strait would have matched the battleship numbers of Sarigao strait (8 battleships total) but the numbers would have been more even (6 US and to Jap in Sarigao, 4 ea at San Bernardino). Assuming a lot of "ifs": What would have really been impressive, and would match your point at looking at battleships differently, is if Halsey had taken the bait and headed north, left TF 34 behind, and the Japanese center force was undetected until spotted by TF 34. If adm Lee decided to seek support with the 7th fleet, and if the Japanese center and southern forces had merged prior to a huge surface fleet fight there would have been 7 Japanese and 10 US battleships engaged with each other. It would have been the biggest BB duel since Jutland, although not anywhere close to the numbers of Jutland, and would have fulfilled the wet dreams of all the Admirals involved in all four fleets. After the war the survivors - Lee, Obendorf, Kurita, and the Jap dude who ran the southern force, would all be sitting in a bar reliving the glory days of the last major battleship duel in history while Halsey would be siting in the corner eating his heart out.
@@richardthomas5362 Drachinifel did a what if, but I think he it left as Lee v Kurita for balance. If it really happened Lee would have coordinated with the Senior Sprague and would have hit Kurita with an anti shipping strike from the three TAFFYs before the surface engagement.
@@johnshepherd9676 I saw Drach's video on that, but I am not sure the TAFFY air strikes would do much good. They were armed with ground support weapons rather than anti-ship weapons, so, other than confusion and making life hell for anyone on deck on the cruisers and battleships, the only ships which could have been threatened would be the destroyers.
@@richardthomas5362 The air groups had a limited supply of anti-shipping weapons. The historical action off Samar was a haphazard affair and the aircraft flew with what they had available in the hanger. They still launched several torpedo attacks. Aircraft would have been set up with whatever anti-ship weapons were available if given a mission. By Lee
The reason Kentucky and Illinois existed as Iowa's sisters is that at the time the USN still hadn't made up their mind about the final design specs of the Montanas. So as to not leave the slipways idle so that the design of the Montana's could be finalized they ordered two additional Iowa since those designs are already finalized. Montana originally started out as BB65 but it was moved down two numbers to accommodate Illinois and Kentucky. In 1939 when Montana was still BB65 some of the designs reached up to 70,000 tons, the size being needed to make this ship top out at 33 knots but around 1940 when Hitler's Wehrmacht blitzed through France and it seemed assured that America being dragged into a global conflict was merely a matter of time the order was given to downsize the Montanas for faster construction. Because this new series of redesigns would take time a further 2 Iowas were ordered to keep the slipways occupied. This push and pull of designs and incorporation of new ideas due to war experience persisted until the Montanas were formally cancelled in 1943. So we don't really know what the final Montana would really have looked like had they been built because the USN up to the cancellation of the Montanas hadn't made up their mind.. Some proposals called for the deletion of the 4th turret to save weight in place for increased electronics and heavy AA. Other proposals called for the secondary gun layout mirroring that of the Alaskas and Baltimores with a superfiring 5 inch twin mounts over the main central turrets.
I've read the book US Battleships by Dr Norman Friedman The Montana-class was a dollar-intensive and they were having a 12 16|50 main armament and a brand-new 5 inch secondary armament And they couldn't completed them would run out 'Tick-Tock' and they were going to be deeper in the harbor And the Panama-Canal wouldn't have them because of 921 feet comparing to 887 feet
My favorite ship personally in W.O.W. is the Scharnhorst because she is a good brawling battleship, you aim for the weak spots with your 11in modest guns then slap them with torpedoes when you close the distance, New Mexico and Nevada are also among my favorites
Great video. Highlights how important naval production and capacity is. Takes a long time to build ships, especially when you have ships taking up space getting repaired. Logistics is something you have to win to win the war
Now, armor manufacture and availability was a factor that I had never considered. Great insight into this subject, Ryan. You've acquired a lot of good resources.
FYI, Battleship armor is made from STS Steel; the difference is what they do to it after the steel is made. All the ships' frames and plates are made from STS steel--nearly everything in the ship is STS but the armor has a long process after the steel is made: it is kept red hot for months, they give it carbolic acid baths (CO2 dissolved in water) to raise the carbon content, they store it in burning peat piles on not allowed to go lower than a certain temperature, then after the prescribed amount of time they let it cool very slowly, and then finally they cut, drill, machine it to shape.
Currently, the battleships I am playing are Montana, Yamato, Missouri and Musashi! I am also playing the aircraft carriers Enterprise (the actual most-awarded warship from World War 2, that honor does not belong to New Jersey) and Midway.
Thank you, Ryan, for a great summary on the long-delayed MONTANAs. Heinrich's book on Warship Building is a must read for every student of warship design, building and gaming. I think their final cancellation in July, 1943 is intriguing because of the timing. The U.S. had not yet taken a Japanese held island (Tarawa was four months in the future), North Africa had just been secured, the next carrier battle would not be for another year, the Battle of the Atlantic was still raging, and the invasion of Europe was postponed until 1944 due to a lack of landing craft. Could anyone in the Navy convince the air-minded president that larger battleships should be built when destroyers, aircraft carriers and landing craft are needed for the planned assaults in 1943 and 1944?
Speaking of World of Warships, I'd love to see a video of you looking over the game's hypothetical Iowas-Delaware (a battlecarrier with a wonky two-gun third turret, located further aft than where turret 3 would be) and Illinois (an Illinois or Kentucky completion proposal sporting twelve Des Moines-style 8-inch main guns, though the superstructure on the WoWs depiction is less radical than the real AA battleship proposals we know of)
Also, there were twenty-nine allied BBs in the Pacific near the end of the war. Probably includes the French and the British Pacific Fleet. Don't recall how many were USN.
If you cannot recall how many American battleships were in the Pacific theater, all you have to do is Google that, it's very simple to do, if you would like I can name everyone of them for you. Iowa Missouri Wisconsin New Jersey Washington North Carolina Alabama South Dakota Indiana Massachusetts Nevada Pennsylvania Idaho Colorado West Virginia Tennessee Mississippi Tennessee New Mexico New York Texas Arkansas That's a total of 22 American battleships that were in the Pacific theater out of the 29 you mentioned.
21 American battleships in the Pacific theater, that's not counting the 75 Aircraft carriers Essex class fleet carriers -Light carriers and escort carriers over 30 cruisers heavy and light and over 125 destroyers and destroyer escorts, so by 1945 you can see clearly how big the US Navy was in the Pacific theater was in comparison. Hope that information helps you.
Currently playing the New Orleans and the Helena, American cruisers. Both are super fun boats. The Helena is more of a sneaky, set 'em on fire from cover type and the New Orleans is a beast mode type cruiser that can pick on battleships if it wants to. The Helena has 152mm main guns, while the New Orleans has 203mm. Helena is lightly armored but has an interesting turret setup with three of them out front. Good for poking a nose out and hitting other ships that have only two guns they can fire back. The New Orleans has bigger guns and better armor. It's not a BB, but it can take one on the chin and not go down
Beta tester for Warships here. Been playing for years and have Iowa and Montana. Working on getting Vermont and just started on the "hybrid" battleship line, which is a line of flight-deck battleships using North Carolina, Iowa and Montana as their base ships. Also own Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma.
In addition to the problems highlighted in this video, I believe need for the last of the Iowas and the Montanas was overtaken by air power. By the end of the war, the old BBS were used only for shore bombardment and the fast BBS were essentially AA escorts for the carriers. The high cost and relatively limited offensive and defensive capabilities of BBSs compared to aircraft carriers led to phasing out big- gun ships in favor of more flexible aircraft carriers.
And as the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War hosts have pointed out, mere destroyers are actually very useful for "shore bombardment" -- or at least for close support during landing operations.
I think it's important to note, that by the time the Montanas would have begun building- there really WERE no enemy battleships for them to fight. Germany's were essentially all gone before we entered the war. What they had left rarely put to sea- because the Brits were hell bent on sinking them whenever they came out of port, and they were VERY persistant about it, lol. The Japanese didn't fare much better- we'd mauled them pretty badly by that point. AND we already had 10 fast BB's, and at least that many Standards and super dreadnoughts that we'd refitted and upgraded heavily. They had Yamato and one or 2 others by late war. Like the Alaskas, they'd have been ships without any real mission by the time they were commissioned. CV's were the relevant heavy hitters. And we needed all the amphibious assaults, DE's, and other smaller ships we could get. As for WoWS, I found the US cruisers- especially the heavy cruisers, and the Alaska and Puerto Rico to be an absolute blast to play. If you like gunships, these are for you. Those 8 and 12" guns hit like runaway freight trains, and they're rather accurate. The CL's are just plain mean, with as many 6" guns as they carry, the rate of fire, and the accuracy and punch of the shells. I ran both lines up to tier 10, reset them, and did it again. I rarely missed having torpedoes- because I never had the temptation to expose myself trying to use them, lol. The battleships are fun, too- esp the Iowas- when played right, they are just evil. Great Destroyers, too. There's a real learning curve to them in the upper tiers, but when you figure it out, damn!! I HATED Benson- then I LOVED it, lol. (WHY are 5" pew-pews so darn FUN??) Could never CV to save my life, so I have no opinion on those. The French lines really clicked for me, too.
I was quite addicted to World of Warships for a number of years and started just after the Beta run ended. When I play now I'm primarily running USA Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers, and IJN Destroyers. Over the years I've filled my shipyard with a lot of lines and classes to try them out too. I'm thrilled that the USS Missouri can still print money (original release version). To this day one of my favorite things is to wreak carnage with low visibility IJN Torpedo Destroyers, despite the insanity introduced with the later version of Aircraft Carriers
In World of Warships, I just got the North Carolina battleship. I can't spend much money so it took me a LONG time to get the exp and coins to obtain it. I have the Farragut destroyer, New Orleans cruiser, and the Cachalot submarine. My least favorite is the submarine because of the ridiculously low amount of time it can stay submerged. I also have the cruiser Charleston, which I got free when I signed up a few years ago, using the link from this TH-cam channel. I have several other ships as well, but they are earlier design models and I don't play them as much. Overall, it's an enjoyable game, and you don't have to spend money on it if you don't want to; unlike most other games out there. Thanks Ryan!
I just started the Japanese BB line tonight. I ran the US CA and BB lines simultaneously to start. I made it up to Iowa, but don't like to play Random, so I've stopped there. I do have Des Moines (I free XP'd my way to her mostly from Baltimore). I also have Seattle, but can't use it in operations, so that's as high as I have gone with it.
I love this man’s contempt and disgust at the mere mention of the kind of person who’d pass on using a battleship to instead use an aircraft carrier in the World of Warships plug before the main content.
I worked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (PNSY) as a Lt. (j.g.) "Ship Superintendent" in 1974 and had oversight responsibility for the completion of the modernization of USS Macdonough (DLG-8) for the last two months before she was re-commissioned. If you want to learn more about the day-to-day operations of the Yard and how the work got done, I'd be happy the chat with you. I also have a good reference book on the Yard's history.
I've been playing World of Warships since Beta Testing. While I don't have the number of ships in my "port" I do have the North Carolina (T8) Iowa (T9) and Montana (T10). I tend to gravitate to destroyers and cruisers in my play even though I do have Japanese, U.S. (of course,) German, British, French and Italian Battlewagons. I simply enjoy the faster play of the smaller, lighter ships. I did obtain ONE carrier from a giveaway prize container but have yet to equip or play her.
Wars are about attrition. Once they got good at sinking multi-million dollar battleships with a handful of hundred thousand dollar planes it was over for the battleship.
Just before WW2, the British planned to build the Lion class battleships. Sept 1939, the British realise the war will be over before they are completed. A proposal to build 2 battlecruisers with turrets taken from old scrapped battleships, could have been in service by 1945, but Churchill wanted a super battleship, which became HMS Vanguard, a new battleship with 2nd hand turrets. It missed the war. Had the Lion class been built, they would have new MK IV 16 inch guns & been 56500 tons, full load.
In world of warships I use mostly Montana, Iowa,(All US Hybrid Battleships) Yamato, Musashi, kawachi, Ishizuchi, ISE, Atlantico, Rio De Janeiro, Agincourt, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Konig, Derflinger, Moltke, Von Der Tann, Viribus Unitas, and Sun Yat Sen
I think another reason the Montana class was never completed was because the Navy had begun to realize that battleships no longer held the value they had in the past, especially with the proven advantages of aircraft carriers. When the Iowas and Montanas were envisioned, battleships were still the capital ships of their fleets. But in the first few years of the war, that changed, and with resources like armor plating being limited, it makes sense that the Navy would prioritize the construction of ships that would contribute more to the war effort.
I wonder...under what circumstances...would it take for the Montana's to be built (Maybe 1 or 2) - The plans were finalized sooner? (This is why they started building Kentucky & Illinois) - We had better & timely intel on Yamato class? (Found out sooner) - Not as much shortage on steel? - Construction of new locks for the Panama Canal moves forward? - Or making and exception, i.e.: Midway class carriers? For them to be completed and make it "into the fight", they would have to have been laid down at the same time as Missouri & Wisconsin...or shortly thereafter. Definitely BEFORE the Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 41. - Perhaps we get Montana...and MAYBE Ohio built before the armistice is signed Sep 2, 45.
What if the US carriers had been sunk at Pearl Harbor and/or if Midway had gone in reverse? If we'd suffered more carrier loses in the world the "battleship is worthless" myth might never have formed. Also, consider that not all of Japan was on board with the surrender - perhaps a long war changes what was built? That may depend on the Invasion of Japan going forward and what might've been lost during such an undertaking.
It would have to involve the US not just using the escalator clauses in the various naval treaties but actually leaving the treaties sooner. The Montana was the first post-Treaty battleship the USN authorized.
Fyi the last two Iowa class battleship hulls ended up being built as u.s.s Sacramento AOE - 1 and u.s.s. Camden AOE -2 that's why they have all of the machinery from the Iowa class battleship still in them👌
Bethlehem, Carnegie-Illinois, and Midvale made some 21" Class "A" barbette test plates for the MONTANAs, each one having the same 55% face thickness as the thinner plates made for all of the other new WWII battleships ("Thick Chill"), but the hardness pattern of the face layer was very different for each plate. Interestingly, Midvale's plate had a fixed maximum hardness for the entire 55% depth. This hardness was also the maximum for earlier, thinner plates, but for them it was that hard only near the surface, being about 550 Brinell Hardness Number -- we are ignoring the thin 1-1.5" surface ~650 BHN "Cemented" or "Harveyized" (carburized) layer. Then the Midvale plate hardness dropped suddenly to the constant backing layer hardness (below ~250 Brinell Hardness Number). The other companies' plates had a more normal slow dropping of the face hardness from the 550 BHN near the surface to the ~250 BHN backing layer. All plates passed the spec ballistic tests, though.
my guess is related to the ever shrinking allocation of armor plate - "the admirals had determined that air power was the way to win in the naval arena, more and better carriers would help them achieve this, not a couple new big battleships that possessed no air power".
Ive been playing WOWS since 2015, and ill say that my favorite line is the IJN BB and currently the best line that fit the meta especially with the super Yamato ship Satsuma with 8×510mm guns.
I see to recall hearing that the most restrictive bottleneck in (fast) large ship construction was the reduction gear. Much of the authorization was in the two Navy acts of 1940, not to be confused with the purpose being to have sufficient ships to operate two navies. 3 Essex's were order in Jul 40, and eight more in Sep of 40. Large ships are normally 3 years from keel lay (which is several months after order) to commission. Compressing this to 19 months was incredible. Even then, several more months are necessary for shake down and training before combat operations. So, it's really two years plus a few months for keel to combat. Furthermore, the initial combat ops were raids. Really offensive operations do not commence until several carriers are trained up (including the 9 Independence's) After Pearl Harbor, we are at Jan 42. The US has 2 Lexington, 3 Yorktown (Hornet just getting ready) and Wasp (really a light carrier). At this point the thinking is defense, including counter-attacks (but not counter offensive) due to great Japanese carrier + battleship force. After Midway a limited offensive was possible, but with the loss of 2 more carriers in Guadalcanal and Saratoga a torpedo magnet, offensive was only possible up the Solomons making use of land bases. So, the thinking in Jan 43 was the main offensive would not begin until late 43. Given the probably 3-year gap between prioritization of ship build to actual combat use, the actual situation changes considerably. It's not until the Marianas campaign that just as US Navy airpower is cresting, an assessment can be made that Japanese airpower is in decline, not from number of aircraft, but rather loss of skilled aviators, and ability to match US planes with 2000 hp engines. Even so, the thinking in mid-44 must be that the invasion of Japan would not start until late 45, and early 46. So, ships started in late 43, even early 44 could see action, Another factor is that ship building needs to accommodate both sufficient striking force plus losses. Four carrier were lost in 42, but no big carriers were lost after that, (1 or 2 heavily damaged, + 1 independence?)
Quite simply: the battleship had become obsolete. By 1942 it was clear that the role for which such a ship was intended: the big gun battleline clash between opposing fleets, was never going to happen in the age of air warfare. Sea control turned into an issue of air control: whichever side could field the largest air force over the oceans would gain strategic mastery. The aircraft carrier became the primary strike instrument at sea, and naval warfare in the Pacific became a matter of capturing islands large enough to locate air bases from which to control large expanses of ocean territory by air and to launch long-range bombers from to attack the enemy homeland. The only reason four Iowa-class ships ended up entering fleet service was because they were already under construction and were far enough along in the building that it was more economical to simply complete the ships and get some usage out of them as escorts for fast carrier task forces and offshore invasion bombardment support. But the remaining two Iowas that had just begun building were canceled, and when that happened the fate of the Montana-class was sealed. The Navy needed aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines far more than it needed battleships.
I very much agree. I love those battleships, but carriers were the big priority. Thankfully, by '42-'43 the Navy decided in favor of carrier production over battleships. Kind of a no-brainer after Midway.
The US had the MOST Aircraft Carriers in WWII. Over 120 were built from keel up, or other ships were converted like the Wolverine and Princeton the only two Great Lakes Training Aircraft Carriers. Most of the 120 were Jeep Carriers, and some were Seaplane Carriers (there were only about 2 if I remember), but still there were over a lot of heavy carriers.
A lot of very valid comments here. To me, the primary reason for not building the Montanas was the cost to crew them. The aircraft carrier became the dominant warship due, in no small part, to its ability to attack with force from a distance. Battleships became too labor intensive for their limited scope of operation. The same number of crew aboard an aircraft carrier is much more cost effective.
If I recall correctly, the Montana Class was designed to be more of a return to the "standard type" battleship in terms of speed. This would have made it considerably slower when compared to the previous three classes of fast battleships. Even if completed, the Montanas wouldn't have been able to escort the carriers and couldn't keep up with the speed the Navy liked about the Iowas. If completed, they probably would have had a service life similar to the Alaska Class, while the Navy would have still retained the and used the Iowas just as it did, simply because it was easier to rapidly deploy the Iowas.
As a guess, I would think another hindrance to the Montana Class being completed swiftly would be some of the technological innovations that they would want to integrate into the designs. As for your question, the answer is none. I play War Thunder. In that game I have unlocked several Tier III vessels in the American set. With all of the other nations, I am just Tier I in Naval because I mostly play Air and Ground vehicles. Yes, all three realms in a single game.
US could have built all the Montanas and the larger Panama canal locks if it hadn't provided half of all the rolled steel used by the USSR during World War Ii.
Well this Montana class would have started in 1943 at its earliest, it wanted 4 3-barrel turrents, alot more armor, longer production time, more resources, more crew, and it will go slower in the water. Also the battleship importance in the Navy was deminshed
Considering how far along Kentucky was and they were starting Illinois.Had they been completed, I wonder if New Jersey would have been reactivated during Vietnam or if they would have just used those ships since they were newer.
The age of the battleship had ended. There were two more Iowa class hulls never completed because the priority for materials had changed not just to carriers but to landing craft. The machinery and the guns were already manufactured but the war had different material need for the steel. The machinery for Illinois and Kentucky was later used by the Navy to construct four very large and fast replenishment ships of the Sacramento class.
I, was on the New Jersey. In 1983, off the coast of Lebanon and we, fired our 16 inch guns for 10 straight hours. President Reagan said don't stop until I, tell you! If any of you can imagine all that time we, started to think when are we , going to stop.
I feel people take it for granted that the Iowa Class has survived as they could have very easily been sent for scrap because the Government decided they were not worth keeping
I am frankly surprised that all four of the class found "happy homes" as museums, I fully expected Iowa and Wisconsin to be stricken and scrapped like two of the three Des Moines heavy cruisers were. Because of the turret explosion Iowa was considered to be in the worst shape of the four and of course neither she nor Wisconsin were going to be able to find a berth in their namesake states so I thought they would be goners. I always knew Missouri would be preserved because of her role as the stage for the Japanese surrender (should have been Enterprise IMHO.) New Jersey was the first surprise, and then Whiskey and Iowa.
@@robertf3479 Why was New Jersey a surprise? She's the most decorated battleship in naval history. As a matter of fact, New Jersey is more historical than Missouri. I DO love Missouri, don't get me wrong. However, her only achievement was, as you stated, the site of surrender for the Japanese. It would've been a crime to scrap New Jersey the same way it was a crime to scrap the Big E (which was also a highly decorated vessel).
Bottom line, there were only a limited number of graving docks large enough to build Ticonderoga, Iowas and Midways. It would have taken many months and much manpower to build even more 1200' long graving docks during a shooting war. You could build 2 or 3 Atlanta AA cursors in space for one Montana, and the Navy needed more AA resources.
Wish we could get a future proofed battleship, I recall seeing designs for a large ship bearing quite a few railguns and laser batteries, and possibly on either a traditional hull or a catamaran. Either one would have been amazing!
It is said that a weapon system goes through a lifecycle, where the first of it is always offensive, it gains defensive capabilities until the defense of the system requires more than the offense can give. That is a good description on why the Montana's were not constructed. While their offensive systems were grand, the same could be accomplished with the aircraft carriers of the day, and more was promised. The battleships required a lot of their systems be devoted to anti aircraft and anti sub, which limited the big gun capability. We can argue that the escort of either ship would be the same, but the power projection of the aircraft carriers held much further range (think of the battle of Midway being fought with one side having only battleships), and the defensive systems (aircraft) of the carrier were the same ones as the offensive(again, aircraft). With the advent of radar and scout planes, aircraft carriers offensive range made them better suited for the battles of WWII and beyond. Some of these arguments were being stated across the Navy in WWII, and the days of the big gun carrying officers became a career shortening opinion. It is also postulated that we build our defenses for the last war, but that's another comment.
Another factor was the Panama Canal. The previous battleships: North Carolina, South Dakota and Iowa class were all 108 feet wide. So they could just fit through the locks of the Panama Canal, which were 110 feet wide. You can find pictures of this online to see what I mean. As Ryan points out, the only ship yards that could build a ship of this size were on the east coast. As the Montanas were 121 feet wide, to reach the west cost and the Pacific, their planned operational area, they would have had to go via Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. So the long way around. Some brief consideration was given to widening the locks of the canal to 125 feet, but this would have closed the canal during construction. Not an realistic option in wartime. Also the same industrial capacity limits the USA encountered during the war would have been a limiting factor on expanding the canal's locks as well.
There were plans to dig a parallel canal with the dimensions to fit the Montana's size but this was never carried through with due to the delay in their construction and final cancelation. This plan would allow the current canal to remain open during construction of the new one.
To anyone who reads this comment, I find it funny as I listen to this video I am/was playing WoW-L; commanding the German battleship Gneisenau. It's a battleship before the Bismarck. I did reach the goal of having the Bismarck, but since the grind for the green stars is long I decided to sell her and still use the Gneisenau. Yes, the Gneisenau only has 6 main guns which are below average for caliber size. However, getting her fully upgraded in acceleration and increasing her HP, she can travel at 32 knots and, what I like about her the most, is that she can launch three torpedoes from her port and starboard sides. I'm also using her to grind for the green stars to get the Colorado, and then the Iowa. On the other hand, both the New Mexico and Colorado are slow ships; the New Mexico can only travel at 21 knots and it's annoying.
STS being broadly equivalent to Class B armor, as well structural is why they used it so extensively in ship hulls and superstructures, including destroyer hulls. But STS wasn't included in the "armor plate" numbers of tonnage for ships, and neither was the armor used in tanks, especially cast hull tanks and turrets.
In addition to the ten new builds....many of the standard class battleships were repaired and upgraded at the same time also tying up drydocks and resources
I have long thought that the reason for these decisions, related to the reason Ryan listed, is that the type of warfare that was being seen on the oceans around the world did not call for battleships if they came at the expense of the various other ships like carriers and cruisers, let alone the LST variants that had to be built somewhere. It comes down to making hard choices.
Other reasons for not constructing the Montanas? Start with a finite number of sailors to crew the Montana-class battleships. The peak number of Americans in naval or military uniform was something like 13 million with around 18 million serving during the period 1939 to 1946. Many of the people in uniform on Pearl Harbor Day were not physically capable of deployment to combat zones overseas--Captain Ronald Reagan, US Cavalry, was one of those due to severe myopia. Where would the sailors come from to crew a Montana? Wouldn't those sailors be better used on another Essex-class carrier or on several fleet oilers? That's just ship's crew--support for the battleships required ports, anchorages, advanced naval bases and the ships needed to service them--plus underway replenishment. Next is a limited amount of money. The USA ran everything on a dollar basis--except when the government could ignore costs. Even sailors needed to be paid! The most expensive program was the B-29 bomber, followed by the atomic bomb--together they're just shy of six billion 1945 dollars. That doesn't include the cost of seizing and supplying forward area bomber bases. The atomic bomb raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not be done from Omaha due to technical limitations of Army Air Force aviation. On the other hand, the Montana-class battleship had to be within 20 miles of the Japanese home island coast to bombard the shoreline but the B-29 base could be 1500 miles from the Japanese home islands and still burn out cities. This money was raised by taxes, by bond sales, and by printing more money, but there was a limit to all three. The labor force was stretched to its maximum during WW2. Otherwise "unemployable" workers were all but drafted into labor armies to keep the fighting forces supplied. The shipyard workers that Montana-class battleships required for their four-year build could have launched hundreds of Liberty and Victory ships. Supporting the labor force meant feeding and housing them. Farm labor was so short that German and Italian POWs were employed in agriculture. There was a 1945 mass shooting in Utah when an off-duty soldier climbed into a guard tower and sprinkled the tents containing captured German soldiers with machine gun fire until the soldier ran out of ammunition. Food was rationed so that "nobody starved" during World War Two, and if someone was in dire straits, they were attended to. If they were workers, they frequently were provided a free hot meal in the factory's canteen. Housing was a significant problem. I attended boot camp at MCRD San Diego back when there was a naval recruit depot next door. I grew up around military and naval relatives, most of them who had experienced WW2 at home and some were on battlefields. Housing was in such short supply that some warehouses were converted to worker barracks--despite the extreme need for warehouses. It didn't quite get to the flop house stage (flop houses seem to have been converted to comply with government housing standards, low as those were) in order to meet the need for more housing. I was a volunteer at the Hill Aerospace Museum and there were some exhibits on home front housing for the massive Hill Field Air Depot. Travel to the east a couple of hours and the smaller Wendover Field Museum has exhibits on how the families of personnel assigned to Wendover had to be creative in their search for housing--decaying relics of the base personnel's housing are being restored. San Diego still has large shipyards and a US Navy base--my relatives talked about how hard it was for workers to find housing. That is, if you could find the warm bodies capable of doing shipyard work. The two biggest constraints were shipyard space and armor plate. Workforce and money were next. Then there was feeding and housing the workforce. The limited number of sailors had to come from somewhere. I haven't exhausted the limits on warship building that required prioritizing ships other than the Montanas. Time is a factor that I cannot place because time cannot be reduced to mere money--and because WW2 was expected to go on into 1948 a few days after Pearl Harbor. Everything was needed NOW.
Hi Ryan, I drove up 2 summers ago to donate a large model of the battleship U.S.S. California BB-44 that I had built in the early 2000's. Including the plexiglass cover over the model. Were you ever able to use it in any exhibit? Our city Jacksonville, FL just got the USS Orleck a few months ago & they will be having their grand opening I believe on Memorial Day weekend. I have driven past where she had been anchored & I am looking forward to visiting the Orleck when she opens. Hopefully you can visit our memorial ship like you have done so for so many other memorial ships. PJ
Good afternoon, The amount of construction, plus the delivery of the war time equipment, it had to be reassess. They weren’t going too have, the amount of materials needed to sustain the two fronts they were engaged in. If Midway wasn’t as successful as it turned out to be, and the loss in navy assets became, the loss of two carriers along with half of the escorting ships, then having to hold back the Japanese battle fleet ( the factor being battleship Yamato), the need for the Montanas would have to be reassess, which included the needed slips and docks for advanced production. The nation would have the ability to build and/or replace Battleships as well as losses in the carrier forces, therefore the immediate need to build the Montana class would not be necessary. If the last two Iowa battleships were completed, with the number of ships increased with fore mentioned needs and given the increased armour and updates to the Iowa class, they would have been enough. Upgrades in the armour and adjustments was necessary to improve the ship design. This would be faster, adding more value with less expense. Kentucky would not received as much armour upgrades as she was in the final phase of its completion. The number of Iowa’s could be extended by the navy estimates and production would have been faster. This would allow the use of the Panama Canal, which would be advantageous to the fleet. The European convoys would have to be reassess at the expense of the Russian convoys. By reducing war materials to the Russian campaign, the materials would be re addressed, as the German armies had been weakened to the point that the Russian forces was now producing their own combat assets and thus hold their own. The European continent was the second most important piece to the puzzle. By this time, the Canadians had increased production of corvette and frigates to protect convoys thus increasing the cover of protection, and to destroy U-boats. The national ability to replace losses of carriers in the Pacific theatre was astonishing . Thank God, the battle at midway had been successful and the strains on ship building was not tax further and the need for the Montana Class had been relieved. Either way the navy had the backing of the President. That is my analysis of what the question asked. The need for the Montana class was not needed although most navy personal would have loved to see them built. Forever in His service
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Isn't it because of the demise of the British Empire battleship HMS Prince of Wales and British Empire Battlecruiser HMS Repulse and the IJN disaster the Battle of Midway
i quit world of warships a few years ago. they have screwed the game up so bad, its not enjoyable to play!
Currently playing as USS New Jersey in World Of Warships PS5, I believe that's the only actual way to play as New Jersey.
@@leftyo9589 I'm still playing and I'm still having a blast. It's my favorite video game. My favorite ship is the battleship USS Massachusetts.
Are the Essex-class ships back in the game? Because from what I know, they were removed a long time ago and still haven't returned.
EDIT: I can confirm that the Essex-class is not in the game. Ryan, your statement was in error.
The US wartime economy was astonishing but it was not infinite. The Admirals in charge could have built the Essex class carriers or the Montana class battleships. The Admirals chose wisely.
Some of the long lead-time items for the Kentucky and Illinois were constructed ... 16"/50cal gun barrels. These were warehoused along with the spares for the other four Iowa class ships.
I mean I concur I mean the war had broke out in 1941 for the United States and at that time industry was catching up with war efforts and demands and simply put as mr. Szymanski as stated that priorities were four different vessels and those battleships were obsolete in the strictest sense
Well, true, but also true is they finished the war, with a glut of carriers.
Let's face it, they could not get all the Essex class that they wanted, because they ended up building more transports, and more escorts
It was the CVBs (Midway class) that the Montana's were canceled for. They began to collect steel to build Montana but their wasn't enough steel or slip ways/ building docks to go around.
Another reason…the number of sailors needed to staff battleships. I had read that the Alaska Class big cruisers required almost as many sailors as a battleship. This was among the several reasons why the 2 barely used Alaska class ships were placed in reserve so quickly after the War ended. Montana class BB would have required huge crews.
Especially given that by 1944-45 the US Army was pretty hungry for manpower. It makes a lot of sense to not spend manpower crewing a battleship you don't really need to begin with.
Additionally, they used almost as much fuel, and you could get 2½ broadsides from an Iowa for less than a single broadside from an Alaska. Maybe even 3. Additionally, the Alaskas, with 4 screws and a single rudder handled like pigs. The Iowas and Midway-class carriers could out-turn them.
You are entirely right about both the Alaska crew size and the Montana class crew size.
Surpringly, only about a hundred more crew, in Flagship configuration, as planned. Remember, the 4th gun itself only required 80 men, the WWII complement for an Iowa was 2,700 men. The Montana was planned to have half the 40mm guns of an Iowa.
The Alaska was basically a pocket battleship/battle cruiser
“Can you think of any other reasons the Montana class wasn’t built?” Yeah. Airplanes.
Nuclear weapons.
@@nmccw3245 no torpedos and aerial bombs can sink battleships. Pearl Harbor Prince of Wales Repulse Yamato and Mushashi prove this.
@@nmccw3245 Project Katie
Japanese has already perfected their naval aviation. they were even the first nation on Earth to design Aircraft Carriers ground up rather than converting existing ships.
battleship traitors
The US had built ten fast battleships by the end of the war, the British five (six if you include HMS Vanguard completed in 1946), add the Richelieu and the Allies had a vast overmatch of modern battleships over the Axis. No need for Montanas, Lions or Alsaces.
I think something that's also overlooked is the labor and skill of the Craftsman involved there just weren't as many qualified workers either to build such an extensive dedication of resources at that point in time at least battleships required greater degrees of engineering and tooling than an aircraft carrier by comparison and it just didn't work out in how many hands they had to hold the Hammers
Not to mention that aircraft carriers were now the kings of the oceans.
Two more Iowa class BB would have been completed in 1946 if the war lasted.
@@alanstevens1296 oh without a doubt had the United States rolled around into 1946 with everything else staying the same no atomic bombs for would have going on for at least one more year Illinois and Kentucky would have been completed and I still believe the Montana's demise was assured after the Battle of Midway
Profoundly really the only way The Montanas get built if the war doesn't break out for the United States initially and the Battle of Midway does not occur in some timeline continuity if possible but really for them to have seen any service whatsoever Ryan has said this multiple times on his channel they would have had to have their kills lady immediately after Pearl Harbor and Terriers we nowhere More instrumental and I can only imagine if we had actually constructed them and I would have liked to have seen them constructed that would have been fewer aircraft carriers by as much as maybe 10 or 12
now count the Allied Carriers
The battleship is by far the most awesome war machine ever built, so so intimidating and yet so beautiful
The nuclear bomb would like a word
@@rohanthandi4903 sadly, we'll hopefully never be able to judge the beauty of nukes ourselves.
@@rohanthandi4903 The USS Nevada would like a word with two of your bombs.
Bikini atoll, Operation Crossroads. The Nevada survive both detonations. A 23Kt air burst and a 27Kt subsurface burst about 90 feet below the lagoon surface.
@@garygrant91 large caliber guns are insignificant compared to the ability to destroy nations and cities, thought that was obvious. Also sure the hull survived the initial blast but any crew would’ve suffered 100 % mortality lol
@@rohanthandi4903 I wont argue against that, but we cannot use nuclear and thermonuclear weapons for everything. If we could, no nuclear nation would need anything but those weapons.
Battleships were created with a primary purpose of fleet actions and a secondary purpose of shore bombardment. At the time they were developed nothing could do either job better. By the time of WWII carrier air wings had become the best for fleet actions. The battleship is still the best at shore bombardment, there are other options that are almost as good but also more versatile.
While the age of battleships is over, that does not mean James Leyda's is false. They are truely one of the most awesome and beautiful ships to ever exist.
Something else that has to be considered is the manpower drawdown that begins to loom as the outcome of the war becomes apparent. The Navy begins to rapidly decommission the battleship fleet right after the war's end. As Japan entered the final stages of the war, with her navy all-but-eliminated and airpower dissipated, even the oldest battleships like Arkansas and New York get shifted over the Pacific. The Navy just doesn't NEED that many battleships...especially new ones. After "Operation Magic Carpet" gets finished, all the old battleships start getting disposed of (Arkansas, Nevada, New York to Operation Crossroads), the others get sent to either the scrapper or mothballs...even the "new" ones like the 2 North Carolinas and the 4 South Dakotas get taken out of service due to manpower shortages. So, in addition to the material shortages and the slipway shortages, the Navy knew that the manpower was going to be limited and the BB's were too manpower intensive to keep going. (Even the carriers got hit with this, many being taken out of service at war's end as well...)
Had the pleasure of writing about shipbuilding economics for a class a while back. it's really exciting hearing those concepts I've read about be discussed here.
Because by the time they would be finished the war would be over and aircraft carriers had already surpassed battleships as the center peice of naval power.
Pitty, i always always wondered a 1980s refit Montana would look like. 🤔
I've made speculative lego models in the past. What I came up with was basically a bigger Iowa Refit. Depending on how many 5" gut turrets you delete and what year of technology you install, there may be room for more Tomahawk boxes or perhaps VLS. I think 4 phalanxes would be plenty. There may be room for Sea Sparrow to be far enough from the 16" guns to survive shockwaves. The reduced crew space requirement and reduced 5" magazine requirement also allows lots of possibilities for internal updates/changes.
We can resurrect the Montana class for the 3rd world war. 😂 make it nuclear powered with EMP shielding and 20 inch main guns that can shoot hypersonic rockets
@@Ahnenerbe1944 might as well add a wave motion cannon while your at it.
@@Cholin3947 you beat me by 24 mins with that comment...... Kenpai!
@@Ahnenerbe1944 Most US military hardware has been EMP shielded for 50 years. But otherwise, sounds cool. You could easily fit a couple hundred VLS cells on a Montana if you lose Turret 3 or 4 and redesign the superstructure. Then throw in some of the launchers for the Dark Eagle hypersonic missile that’s replacing the guns on the Zumwalts. The problem would be getting the AEGIS radars enough electric power and making them stand up to the gun blast.
I think modern historians sometimes underestimate the effect of seeing Musashi and Yamato sunk by aircraft with relative ease. The Navy's Big Gun Mafia was ebbing in popularity and prestige, while the Brown Shoes waxed in influence. There is a good chance any Montana's that had been started on the ways in late 1943 or '44 would have been scrapped before completion anyway, even if the armor plates had been available earlier. The concept of the super battleship having been discredited by the proofs of their vulnerability.
Yup. After the British lost the Prince of Wales and Repulse early on in the war, and then the US taking out the two Jappinise BB's we saw the carriers where the wave of the future.
100% agree.
Even if you allow a wide interpretation of "relative ease", sending 70k tons of anything to the bottom (twice!) is an undisputable success.
Agreed. Sometimes it's hard to understand motivation because we have the whole picture.
any Montanas
The Battleship in WW2, by the end, was not a ship killing weapon so much. They can deliver more ordinance than 20 squadrons of aircraft in the first hour of an assault. Its naval artillery. Given that 80% of the worlds population lives with in 100 miles from the coast having a mobile artillery piece that can sit off shore and pummel your port is still a valuable weapon. We have nothing that can compare today. Shells are cheap by comparison to smart weapons. With radar and lidar acquisition you could build a ballistic weapon that is just as accurate as a smart bomb but it could deliver continuous bombardment, for days, to a region for a half the price. Every smart missile costs us 10's of millions of dollars. Even manned to 2500 people a battleship would just cost us about $400,000 a day. If we really get into it with a force like China or Russia we will be looking at putting a battleship-ish type warship in the theater just to save money on missiles.
It’s always been my understanding that the main thing with the Montana’s was available build space and the anticipated speed of the build. They estimated that they could build the first 2 Midways substantially faster than they could build the first 2 Montana’s. So they wanted those 2 Midways done before they tied up the big docks with the longer build Montana’s. Anticipated speed of build was really the big thing. The big slipways were too precious a resource to tie up for too many years.
Yeah, the other thing was the looming end of hostilities. The montanas were not going to complete until 47, 48 at the latest. The Midways could have been completed by the time of operation Downfall(~5 months after the end of the war, the spring of 46). The fact of the matter was that the montanas were never going to see a lick of combat, and the US navy went "Why are we building a ship that isn't going to war, when we can build a ship that can go to war?"
@@novatopaz9880 True. The Midway herself was days away from service when the war ended. She was a a functional warship by ‘45. I forget how far from service the FDR was at that point.
@@andrewtaylor940 The FDR was commissioned in October so while it would had missed Operation Olympic it could have been available for Operation Coronet in the spring.
the Montanas
You could almost build another 2 Iowas to one Montana. If anything that's a better option because the Iowas could keep up with the rest of the fleet.
I had lunch on Saturday looking out at a coastline that was filled with liberty ships being constructed in the 40’s. Completing one every few days. The instant growth of the shipbuilding industry to support wwii must have been amazing to see, but as stated that ability wasn’t infinite.
The improvements of the torpedo bombers, and of the torpedoes in themselves, doomed the big gun warship.
As Drach has said: bombs and shells can tear a ship apart, they can burn it to the waterline. But ships only *sink* if you poke holes below the waterline and the water comes in.
Armor steel, drydock slots, gun barrels *delayed* the Montanas. But torpedoes *cancelled* them.
How long would it have taken to make the guns?
@@alexwood5425 no exact idea but engines, armor and guns were built before any hulls. I mean the USN had several spare 16in 50cal Mk.2 guns from the planned South Dakota 1920 class Battleships and Lexington class battlecruisers. Yet only like the Lexington class battlecruisers had any hulls built by the time the WNT was signed
I disagree that the torpedoe bomber was the deathknell of the battleship.
Quite frankly, blowing them to bits with dive bombers proved quite adequate. Mission kill a ship, and that pretty much ruins it's utility. Submarines were getting better, and guided missiles were being developed!
Guided missiles are what really killed the battleship. Much smaller, cheaper ships could now carry armament equal to, or more deadly than a battleship's big guns.
@@mahbriggs My reasoning is as follows: ship launched missiles were not operational until the 50s
The Montanas were cancelled years before surface ship launched anti-ship missiles became operational or proven.
Operational missiles during ww2 were launched from aircraft. They were flying torpedoes and depended on aircraft/carrier development.
Had mission kill been adequate in the 40s, many more ships would have been captured. But both Yamatos were bombed first, no quarter was given, and then hit by torpedoes UNTIL they floundered.
Respectfully, we disagree. 👍
@ricardokowalski1579
Yes, at the end of WWII, torpedo bombers were still viable, but only barely. Look how fast they faded away after the war.
We disagree only to an extent.
Yes, effective ship launched missiles only were developed in the 1950s, but effective air launched missiles were available sooner. Destroy the upper works of a modern battleship, and it is mission killed. It can neither effectively defend itself nor attack other ships.
There was little need for a new battleship after the war, and Ryan explains why it wasn't built during the war. After the war, the US, the British, and the French were the only nations with modern battleships, and they were allies. And while they proved useful for shore bombardment, there just wasn't much other use for them. Carrier air power and submarines, especially after the development of nuclear powered submarines, now ruled the sea!
The resources spent on a new battleship, even one as capable as the Montana, would have been better spent on upgrading the many carriers we already had, or building newer and bigger carriers, and nuclear-powered submarines, which is what we did.
The really amazing thing about the switch from battleships to air power is how an institution as rigid as the military was able to adjust over such a short period of time. It’s fascinating from an organizational behavioral standpoint, I can’t think of any organization that large that has made such a fundamental shift that quickly.
But contrast that statement with respect to battleship construction, with how long it took the Navy to acknowledge the problems with the frequently defective torpedoes that American submarines used in the first half of the war.
As much as a Battleship fan that I am, the Navy made the right decision. We needed mor fleet and escort carriers and other smaller ships. We had enough BBs both modern like New Jersey and near obsolete like Texas, to handle shore bombardment which was virtually the only likely scenerio that they would likely use their main armorment for.
I would be interested in seeing a video on how armor plate was installed during construction of a battleship like New Jersey.
I've always thought the battleship had become somewhat obsolete by 1945, and instead of the once-anticipated battleship v. battleship duels, they were relegated to escorting the fast carrier groups. This role was performed admirably, as well as shore bombardment of Japan, and later 'Nam. They are magnificent machines of great beauty, speed, grace, and power. I'm glad that a number of them are preserved today for us to admire. I do wish, though, that at least one Montana class had been built.
Depends on what is meant by "obsolete." The ones in service were still useful enough to continue to maintain and upgrade them, but the cost of building more new hulls was no longer the best way to use manpower and material that could be spent on carriers.
The time required to build the guns was often longer than the time required to build hulls. The Montana class COULD use 16"/50 (12 instead of 9). However, an Essex can deliver 10 times the weight of ordinance, at 15 times the range. Properly sequenced, two squadrons of fighters can escort the bombers, keeping a squadron back to protect carriers. Guns are pretty good at shore bombardment, but typically 5% (or less) hit the opposing battleships. Further than 23 miles inland, you need airstrikes, NOT naval guns.
Another reason was probably that the BB was dangerously obsolete by 1944. Only one or two BB vs BB actions happened in 1944. Except for shore bombardment and AA defense, BBs were virtually useless. And no enemy navy had anything close to the number of BBs needed to take on the BBs of the USN.
Or, for that matter. the allies in general. They started the war with a massive hull number advantage over the axis, one that was only maintained, then further widened once the united states joined.
@@Destroyer_V0 The Axis could and did gain local naval superiority as the Japanese did for the first 6 months of the war in the Eastern Pacific and the Indian ocean. Two entire fleets, one Allied and one Japanese went down in the Solomon's by the end of 1943.
To win the Allies had to make sure the Axis powers could not get naval superiority anywhere. Hence the enormous naval expansion. The US built 10 BBs. No other nation built that many. The US also built over 100 aircraft carriers, more than all of the other nations combined. By 1945 the USN and RN had naval supremacy virtually everywhere on the planet.
And really, the way they bombarded was flawed, anyway. They fired in close, fuzed for impact detonations. The rounds should've been lobbed in from high angles delay-fuzed to penetrate more deeply, because the bursts on the surface had very little effect on the Japanese fortifications, all told.
I don't play World of Warships on PC, but I do play World of Warships Blitz on my phone. I generally play with the Richelieu. I like the way her main battery is arranged, as I can fire my full broadside at an enemy ship while heading straight at them. Very helpful when chasing somebody down. With Iowa, I'd have to approach at the right angle if I wanted to fire my full broadside. Her secondary battery, on the other hand, is just bad IMO.
I play legends and the Richelieu is one of the worst tier 7 battleships. It is very weak to HE rounds and every cruiser likes to spam HE plus it's guns are very inaccurate. Ironically It's sister ship Jean Bart is considered one of the best due to it's reload booster and better reload in general. Very few players have it though since it was a campaign ship a very long time ago and it hasn't returned since.
My recollection of history indicates that there was a view the US was winning the war in 1944-45 and there was a realization that the BB was no longer 'Queen of the Seas'. Also, BBs were expensive to build but somewhat dependent on the sale of war bonds. With the end of the war, most warships that were started were canceled outright, including KENTUCKY and ILLINOIS. As you mentioned, in 1945 only about 7,000 tons of armor were designated for BB construction, the same as pre-war. I imagine most of this armor plate went to KENTUCKY as not much had been done on the ILLINOIS. The USN budget after September 2 was seriously reduced to the point it was hard to properly maintain the 'mothball fleet' due to paucity of funding.
Kentucky wasn't cancelled when the war ended. Work continued on her until 1950, and she was nearly 75% complete when they halted construction.
Lol that was known in 1941
@@HoldenOversoul The hull for the New Jersey was laid down in 1940 and was launched in 1942. The hull for the Kentucky was laid down in 1942 and was not launched (uncompleted) until 1950. It is obvious that the construction of the Kentucky was a very low priority.
@@chac65 Ok, what's your point? The post I was replying to stated that Illinois and Kentucky were cancelled outright. All in caps, ILLINOIS and KENTUCKY cancelled outright. Cancelled outright and low priority are the same thing?
@@HoldenOversoul My overall point is that the USA and the rest of the world stopped building battleships (the Montana, etc.) because the raid on Taranto, Pearl Harbour, the sinking of the Repulse and Prince of Wales, and early naval battles between the US and Japan demonstrated their obsolescence.
The Montana's were not designed to be able to pass thru the Panama Canal and Slower than the Iowa's, so those two factors were surely important considerations in cancelling the class. In World of Warships I primarily play Arkansas Beta (USS Arkansas (BB-33)), West Virginia '41, USS Oklahoma (BB-37) and USS New Mexico (BB-40).
I feel pretty confident that the US Navy saw the writing on the wall, or rather the oil slick on the sea, when HMS Prince of Wales (53) was sunk the way it was. I believe the PoW succumbing to an Aircraft Carrier was one of the primary factors for why the US Navy kept bumping a start of the Montana line like they did. Also, the numbers presented validate my hypothesis, in that more and more armor plating was being allocated for CVs and their escorts.
However the Prince of Wales was sunk by land based airplanes. There was no ship based aircraft involved in that fracas.
@@wesleyphillips7744 Land based, but aircraft with a handful of bombs and torpedoes nonetheless. I'm not fully informed but was Bismarck the only big ship that shot at PoW?
Forgetting Hood at Denmark Strait
Those armor steel tonnage numbers are insane.
It’s kinda cool being able to see the navy’s priorities change during the war through armour designation .. you can literally see the death of battleships through their armour designation of allotted amount .. battleships construction died between 1943-44 and never recovered
Plus, repaired and rehabilitated older battleships (and those salvaged from Pearl Harbor) were coming online for surface and shore bombardment usage. Although not fast battleships, they were plenty useful. Modernized with radar, improved torpedo blisters, dual 5-inch gun mounts, 20mm, and 40 mm antiaircraft weapons, these were awesome and useful battlewagons. This allowed the fast BBs to stick with the carrier task forces.
You see similar issues with German tank production resulted in over hardened (brittle) steel going on the front and mild steel being used on the rear because that is what they had. Can you imagine haw many tanks could have been produced with the steel used on Bismarck and Tirpitz at 55,000 tones each?
The tank factories were already running at full capacity.
Bismark and Tirpitz had already been completely years before the German tank industry started making "real" tanks. When Tirpitz was launched a Pz.Fpfw. II was state of the art and the PzKfw III was just getting approval for production.
He asked earlier about if interested in a video on the shipbuilding capability - why 2 Battleships per year. Yes, please, (beg). And your thought on the current warship building capability in our country.
If Halsey left TF 34 to guard the San Bernadino Strait we would have at least finished Illinois and Kentucky because the largest naval battle in history would have been primarily a surface engagement and we would looked at battleships differently then we do now.
The possible battle of San Bernardino strait would have matched the battleship numbers of Sarigao strait (8 battleships total) but the numbers would have been more even (6 US and to Jap in Sarigao, 4 ea at San Bernardino). Assuming a lot of "ifs": What would have really been impressive, and would match your point at looking at battleships differently, is if Halsey had taken the bait and headed north, left TF 34 behind, and the Japanese center force was undetected until spotted by TF 34. If adm Lee decided to seek support with the 7th fleet, and if the Japanese center and southern forces had merged prior to a huge surface fleet fight there would have been 7 Japanese and 10 US battleships engaged with each other. It would have been the biggest BB duel since Jutland, although not anywhere close to the numbers of Jutland, and would have fulfilled the wet dreams of all the Admirals involved in all four fleets. After the war the survivors - Lee, Obendorf, Kurita, and the Jap dude who ran the southern force, would all be sitting in a bar reliving the glory days of the last major battleship duel in history while Halsey would be siting in the corner eating his heart out.
@@richardthomas5362 Drachinifel did a what if, but I think he it left as Lee v Kurita for balance. If it really happened Lee would have coordinated with the Senior Sprague and would have hit Kurita with an anti shipping strike from the three TAFFYs before the surface engagement.
than we do
@@johnshepherd9676 I saw Drach's video on that, but I am not sure the TAFFY air strikes would do much good. They were armed with ground support weapons rather than anti-ship weapons, so, other than confusion and making life hell for anyone on deck on the cruisers and battleships, the only ships which could have been threatened would be the destroyers.
@@richardthomas5362 The air groups had a limited supply of anti-shipping weapons. The historical action off Samar was a haphazard affair and the aircraft flew with what they had available in the hanger. They still launched several torpedo attacks. Aircraft would have been set up with whatever anti-ship weapons were available if given a mission. By Lee
I like that I finally know what those random cables in the background are for now!
The reason Kentucky and Illinois existed as Iowa's sisters is that at the time the USN still hadn't made up their mind about the final design specs of the Montanas.
So as to not leave the slipways idle so that the design of the Montana's could be finalized they ordered two additional Iowa since those designs are already finalized.
Montana originally started out as BB65 but it was moved down two numbers to accommodate Illinois and Kentucky.
In 1939 when Montana was still BB65 some of the designs reached up to 70,000 tons, the size being needed to make this ship top out at 33 knots
but around 1940 when Hitler's Wehrmacht blitzed through France and it seemed assured that America being dragged into a global conflict was merely a matter of time the order was given to downsize the Montanas for faster construction. Because this new series of redesigns would take time a further 2 Iowas were ordered to keep the slipways occupied.
This push and pull of designs and incorporation of new ideas due to war experience persisted until the Montanas were formally cancelled in 1943.
So we don't really know what the final Montana would really have looked like had they been built because the USN up to the cancellation of the Montanas hadn't made up their mind..
Some proposals called for the deletion of the 4th turret to save weight in place for increased electronics and heavy AA.
Other proposals called for the secondary gun layout mirroring that of the Alaskas and Baltimores with a superfiring 5 inch twin mounts over the main central turrets.
I've read the book US Battleships by Dr Norman Friedman The Montana-class was a dollar-intensive and they were having a 12 16|50 main armament and a brand-new 5 inch secondary armament And they couldn't completed them would run out 'Tick-Tock' and they were going to be deeper in the harbor And the Panama-Canal wouldn't have them because of 921 feet comparing to 887 feet
@@jonathanstrong4812 My father just got that book in along with his Cruisers and Destroyers books by the same author. Very interesting reading.
My favorite ship personally in W.O.W. is the Scharnhorst because she is a good brawling battleship, you aim for the weak spots with your 11in modest guns then slap them with torpedoes when you close the distance, New Mexico and Nevada are also among my favorites
Scharnhorst (both Iron Blood and META versions) in Azur Lane is pretty good too!
@@davidford3115 truthfully it’s hard to use Scharnhorst here lately due to all the HE spammers out there
Great video. Highlights how important naval production and capacity is. Takes a long time to build ships, especially when you have ships taking up space getting repaired. Logistics is something you have to win to win the war
Now, armor manufacture and availability was a factor that I had never considered. Great insight into this subject, Ryan. You've acquired a lot of good resources.
FYI, Battleship armor is made from STS Steel; the difference is what they do to it after the steel is made. All the ships' frames and plates are made from STS steel--nearly everything in the ship is STS but the armor has a long process after the steel is made: it is kept red hot for months, they give it carbolic acid baths (CO2 dissolved in water) to raise the carbon content, they store it in burning peat piles on not allowed to go lower than a certain temperature, then after the prescribed amount of time they let it cool very slowly, and then finally they cut, drill, machine it to shape.
Currently, the battleships I am playing are Montana, Yamato, Missouri and Musashi! I am also playing the aircraft carriers Enterprise (the actual most-awarded warship from World War 2, that honor does not belong to New Jersey) and Midway.
Thank you, Ryan, for a great summary on the long-delayed MONTANAs. Heinrich's book on Warship Building is a must read for every student of warship design, building and gaming. I think their final cancellation in July, 1943 is intriguing because of the timing. The U.S. had not yet taken a Japanese held island (Tarawa was four months in the future), North Africa had just been secured, the next carrier battle would not be for another year, the Battle of the Atlantic was still raging, and the invasion of Europe was postponed until 1944 due to a lack of landing craft. Could anyone in the Navy convince the air-minded president that larger battleships should be built when destroyers, aircraft carriers and landing craft are needed for the planned assaults in 1943 and 1944?
Most folks have no idea how important logistics are in wartime.
Speaking of World of Warships, I'd love to see a video of you looking over the game's hypothetical Iowas-Delaware (a battlecarrier with a wonky two-gun third turret, located further aft than where turret 3 would be) and Illinois (an Illinois or Kentucky completion proposal sporting twelve Des Moines-style 8-inch main guns, though the superstructure on the WoWs depiction is less radical than the real AA battleship proposals we know of)
Maybe a Ryan World of Warships livestream?
Also, there were twenty-nine allied BBs in the Pacific near the end of the war. Probably includes the French and the British Pacific Fleet. Don't recall how many were USN.
17 US BBs in the Pacific in 1945. The US had 38 total.
If you cannot recall how many American battleships were in the Pacific theater, all you have to do is Google that, it's very simple to do, if you would like I can name everyone of them for you.
Iowa
Missouri
Wisconsin
New Jersey
Washington
North Carolina
Alabama
South Dakota
Indiana
Massachusetts
Nevada
Pennsylvania
Idaho
Colorado
West Virginia
Tennessee
Mississippi
Tennessee
New Mexico
New York
Texas
Arkansas
That's a total of 22 American battleships that were in the Pacific theater out of the 29 you mentioned.
Sorry mentioned Tennessee twice, that's a total of 21.
The French did not have any battleships in the Pacific theater....that's a fact.
21 American battleships in the Pacific theater, that's not counting the 75 Aircraft carriers Essex class fleet carriers -Light carriers and escort carriers over 30 cruisers heavy and light and over 125 destroyers and destroyer escorts, so by 1945 you can see clearly how big the US Navy was in the Pacific theater was in comparison. Hope that information helps you.
Currently playing the New Orleans and the Helena, American cruisers. Both are super fun boats. The Helena is more of a sneaky, set 'em on fire from cover type and the New Orleans is a beast mode type cruiser that can pick on battleships if it wants to. The Helena has 152mm main guns, while the New Orleans has 203mm. Helena is lightly armored but has an interesting turret setup with three of them out front. Good for poking a nose out and hitting other ships that have only two guns they can fire back. The New Orleans has bigger guns and better armor. It's not a BB, but it can take one on the chin and not go down
1:50 “and you’re a TRAITOR to battleships”
Exactly how it feels
Beta tester for Warships here. Been playing for years and have Iowa and Montana. Working on getting Vermont and just started on the "hybrid" battleship line, which is a line of flight-deck battleships using North Carolina, Iowa and Montana as their base ships. Also own Texas, Arizona and Oklahoma.
I love World of Warships, it is a great game. I am currently playing the British Battle Cruser line, loving the Renown so far.
Aircraft carriers had superseded battle ships as well as far as Navy doctrine goes. They were deemed unnecessary, and resources were stressed.
In addition to the problems highlighted in this video, I believe need for the last of the Iowas and the Montanas was overtaken by air power. By the end of the war, the old BBS were used only for shore bombardment and the fast BBS were essentially AA escorts for the carriers. The high cost and relatively limited offensive and defensive capabilities of BBSs compared to aircraft carriers led to phasing out big- gun ships in favor of more flexible aircraft carriers.
A fellow Heretic. I made a similar comment a few minutes ago. If you need AA cover for the carriers you dont need to be hauling around 16" guns.
And as the Unauthorized History of the Pacific War hosts have pointed out, mere destroyers are actually very useful for "shore bombardment" -- or at least for close support during landing operations.
I think it's important to note, that by the time the Montanas would have begun building- there really WERE no enemy battleships for them to fight. Germany's were essentially all gone before we entered the war. What they had left rarely put to sea- because the Brits were hell bent on sinking them whenever they came out of port, and they were VERY persistant about it, lol.
The Japanese didn't fare much better- we'd mauled them pretty badly by that point. AND we already had 10 fast BB's, and at least that many Standards and super dreadnoughts that we'd refitted and upgraded heavily. They had Yamato and one or 2 others by late war. Like the Alaskas, they'd have been ships without any real mission by the time they were commissioned.
CV's were the relevant heavy hitters. And we needed all the amphibious assaults, DE's, and other smaller ships we could get.
As for WoWS, I found the US cruisers- especially the heavy cruisers, and the Alaska and Puerto Rico to be an absolute blast to play. If you like gunships, these are for you. Those 8 and 12" guns hit like runaway freight trains, and they're rather accurate. The CL's are just plain mean, with as many 6" guns as they carry, the rate of fire, and the accuracy and punch of the shells. I ran both lines up to tier 10, reset them, and did it again. I rarely missed having torpedoes- because I never had the temptation to expose myself trying to use them, lol. The battleships are fun, too- esp the Iowas- when played right, they are just evil. Great Destroyers, too. There's a real learning curve to them in the upper tiers, but when you figure it out, damn!! I HATED Benson- then I LOVED it, lol. (WHY are 5" pew-pews so darn FUN??) Could never CV to save my life, so I have no opinion on those. The French lines really clicked for me, too.
Iowa class was the last battleship, everything else has been armored cruiser at best.
British recycled all of theirs by the 1950s.
Well of course the British were going to put the German battleship on the bottom, they were a threat after all
I was quite addicted to World of Warships for a number of years and started just after the Beta run ended. When I play now I'm primarily running USA Battleships, Cruisers, and Destroyers, and IJN Destroyers. Over the years I've filled my shipyard with a lot of lines and classes to try them out too.
I'm thrilled that the USS Missouri can still print money (original release version).
To this day one of my favorite things is to wreak carnage with low visibility IJN Torpedo Destroyers, despite the insanity introduced with the later version of Aircraft Carriers
In World of Warships, I just got the North Carolina battleship. I can't spend much money so it took me a LONG time to get the exp and coins to obtain it. I have the Farragut destroyer, New Orleans cruiser, and the Cachalot submarine. My least favorite is the submarine because of the ridiculously low amount of time it can stay submerged. I also have the cruiser Charleston, which I got free when I signed up a few years ago, using the link from this TH-cam channel. I have several other ships as well, but they are earlier design models and I don't play them as much.
Overall, it's an enjoyable game, and you don't have to spend money on it if you don't want to; unlike most other games out there.
Thanks Ryan!
I just started the Japanese BB line tonight. I ran the US CA and BB lines simultaneously to start. I made it up to Iowa, but don't like to play Random, so I've stopped there. I do have Des Moines (I free XP'd my way to her mostly from Baltimore). I also have Seattle, but can't use it in operations, so that's as high as I have gone with it.
Yep, I can think of one big reason they were never built- lack of Panamax capability.
I love this man’s contempt and disgust at the mere mention of the kind of person who’d pass on using a battleship to instead use an aircraft carrier in the World of Warships plug before the main content.
I worked at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard (PNSY) as a Lt. (j.g.) "Ship Superintendent" in 1974 and had oversight responsibility for the completion of the modernization of USS Macdonough (DLG-8) for the last two months before she was re-commissioned. If you want to learn more about the day-to-day operations of the Yard and how the work got done, I'd be happy the chat with you. I also have a good reference book on the Yard's history.
I've been playing World of Warships since Beta Testing. While I don't have the number of ships in my "port" I do have the North Carolina (T8) Iowa (T9) and Montana (T10). I tend to gravitate to destroyers and cruisers in my play even though I do have Japanese, U.S. (of course,) German, British, French and Italian Battlewagons. I simply enjoy the faster play of the smaller, lighter ships.
I did obtain ONE carrier from a giveaway prize container but have yet to equip or play her.
Destroyers sure are fun. I just delivered 75k damage in three minutes with a Benson.
Lead times for the 16" guns were pretty long too weren't they?
Yes, but those were already being churned out for the Iowas. They could have used the spares for the Montanas in a pinch.
Wars are about attrition. Once they got good at sinking multi-million dollar battleships with a handful of hundred thousand dollar planes it was over for the battleship.
Just before WW2, the British planned to build the Lion class battleships. Sept 1939, the British realise the war will be over before they are completed. A proposal to build 2 battlecruisers with turrets taken from old scrapped battleships, could have been in service by 1945, but Churchill wanted a super battleship, which became HMS Vanguard, a new battleship with 2nd hand turrets. It missed the war. Had the Lion class been built, they would have new MK IV 16 inch guns & been 56500 tons, full load.
In world of warships I use mostly Montana, Iowa,(All US Hybrid Battleships) Yamato, Musashi, kawachi, Ishizuchi, ISE, Atlantico, Rio De Janeiro, Agincourt, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Konig, Derflinger, Moltke, Von Der Tann, Viribus Unitas, and Sun Yat Sen
I think another reason the Montana class was never completed was because the Navy had begun to realize that battleships no longer held the value they had in the past, especially with the proven advantages of aircraft carriers. When the Iowas and Montanas were envisioned, battleships were still the capital ships of their fleets. But in the first few years of the war, that changed, and with resources like armor plating being limited, it makes sense that the Navy would prioritize the construction of ships that would contribute more to the war effort.
I wonder...under what circumstances...would it take for the Montana's to be built (Maybe 1 or 2)
- The plans were finalized sooner? (This is why they started building Kentucky & Illinois)
- We had better & timely intel on Yamato class? (Found out sooner)
- Not as much shortage on steel?
- Construction of new locks for the Panama Canal moves forward?
- Or making and exception, i.e.: Midway class carriers?
For them to be completed and make it "into the fight", they would have to have been laid down at the same time as Missouri & Wisconsin...or shortly thereafter. Definitely BEFORE the Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 41.
- Perhaps we get Montana...and MAYBE Ohio built before the armistice is signed Sep 2, 45.
What if the US carriers had been sunk at Pearl Harbor and/or if Midway had gone in reverse? If we'd suffered more carrier loses in the world the "battleship is worthless" myth might never have formed. Also, consider that not all of Japan was on board with the surrender - perhaps a long war changes what was built? That may depend on the Invasion of Japan going forward and what might've been lost during such an undertaking.
It would have to involve the US not just using the escalator clauses in the various naval treaties but actually leaving the treaties sooner. The Montana was the first post-Treaty battleship the USN authorized.
The engines for the BB-66 USS Kentucky ended up on my ship the USS Sacramento AOE-1.
Fyi the last two Iowa class battleship hulls ended up being built as u.s.s Sacramento AOE - 1 and u.s.s. Camden AOE -2 that's why they have all of the machinery from the Iowa class battleship still in them👌
Bethlehem, Carnegie-Illinois, and Midvale made some 21" Class "A" barbette test plates for the MONTANAs, each one having the same 55% face thickness as the thinner plates made for all of the other new WWII battleships ("Thick Chill"), but the hardness pattern of the face layer was very different for each plate. Interestingly, Midvale's plate had a fixed maximum hardness for the entire 55% depth. This hardness was also the maximum for earlier, thinner plates, but for them it was that hard only near the surface, being about 550 Brinell Hardness Number -- we are ignoring the thin 1-1.5" surface ~650 BHN "Cemented" or "Harveyized" (carburized) layer. Then the Midvale plate hardness dropped suddenly to the constant backing layer hardness (below ~250 Brinell Hardness Number). The other companies' plates had a more normal slow dropping of the face hardness from the 550 BHN near the surface to the ~250 BHN backing layer. All plates passed the spec ballistic tests, though.
The footage around 13:00 minutes is just wild with the lath work on propellers.
What about the 16" turret construction requirements for the Montana Class would that have impacted construction timelines.
I am interested in knowing more about the authorized two battleships a year.
my guess is related to the ever shrinking allocation of armor plate - "the admirals had determined that air power was the way to win in the naval arena, more and better carriers would help them achieve this, not a couple new big battleships that possessed no air power".
Ive been playing WOWS since 2015, and ill say that my favorite line is the IJN BB and currently the best line that fit the meta especially with the super Yamato ship Satsuma with 8×510mm guns.
Cool to see WOWS onboard, maybe some in game stuff to support the channel? Some onboard stuff to support the game? This could be a great relationship.
The propeller machining footage was really cool
Ya know I never even thought about the availability of armor plate. To me the conversation in 42 was “What do we need the most..Iowa’s or Essex’s”
What a great channel, excellent presentation as always!
I see to recall hearing that the most restrictive bottleneck in (fast) large ship construction was the reduction gear. Much of the authorization was in the two Navy acts of 1940, not to be confused with the purpose being to have sufficient ships to operate two navies. 3 Essex's were order in Jul 40, and eight more in Sep of 40. Large ships are normally 3 years from keel lay (which is several months after order) to commission. Compressing this to 19 months was incredible. Even then, several more months are necessary for shake down and training before combat operations. So, it's really two years plus a few months for keel to combat. Furthermore, the initial combat ops were raids. Really offensive operations do not commence until several carriers are trained up (including the 9 Independence's)
After Pearl Harbor, we are at Jan 42. The US has 2 Lexington, 3 Yorktown (Hornet just getting ready) and Wasp (really a light carrier). At this point the thinking is defense, including counter-attacks (but not counter offensive) due to great Japanese carrier + battleship force. After Midway a limited offensive was possible, but with the loss of 2 more carriers in Guadalcanal and Saratoga a torpedo magnet, offensive was only possible up the Solomons making use of land bases. So, the thinking in Jan 43 was the main offensive would not begin until late 43.
Given the probably 3-year gap between prioritization of ship build to actual combat use, the actual situation changes considerably.
It's not until the Marianas campaign that just as US Navy airpower is cresting, an assessment can be made that Japanese airpower is in decline, not from number of aircraft, but rather loss of skilled aviators, and ability to match US planes with 2000 hp engines.
Even so, the thinking in mid-44 must be that the invasion of Japan would not start until late 45, and early 46. So, ships started in late 43, even early 44 could see action,
Another factor is that ship building needs to accommodate both sufficient striking force plus losses. Four carrier were lost in 42, but no big carriers were lost after that, (1 or 2 heavily damaged, + 1 independence?)
Quite simply: the battleship had become obsolete. By 1942 it was clear that the role for which such a ship was intended: the big gun battleline clash between opposing fleets, was never going to happen in the age of air warfare. Sea control turned into an issue of air control: whichever side could field the largest air force over the oceans would gain strategic mastery. The aircraft carrier became the primary strike instrument at sea, and naval warfare in the Pacific became a matter of capturing islands large enough to locate air bases from which to control large expanses of ocean territory by air and to launch long-range bombers from to attack the enemy homeland. The only reason four Iowa-class ships ended up entering fleet service was because they were already under construction and were far enough along in the building that it was more economical to simply complete the ships and get some usage out of them as escorts for fast carrier task forces and offshore invasion bombardment support. But the remaining two Iowas that had just begun building were canceled, and when that happened the fate of the Montana-class was sealed. The Navy needed aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines far more than it needed battleships.
I very much agree. I love those battleships, but carriers were the big priority. Thankfully, by '42-'43 the Navy decided in favor of carrier production over battleships. Kind of a no-brainer after Midway.
A montana class with a nuclear reactor would have been nice.
The US had the MOST Aircraft Carriers in WWII. Over 120 were built from keel up, or other ships were converted like the Wolverine and Princeton the only two Great Lakes Training Aircraft Carriers. Most of the 120 were Jeep Carriers, and some were Seaplane Carriers (there were only about 2 if I remember), but still there were over a lot of heavy carriers.
Very interested in knowing about the authorized two battleships a year.
A lot of very valid comments here. To me, the primary reason for not building the Montanas was the cost to crew them. The aircraft carrier became the dominant warship due, in no small part, to its ability to attack with force from a distance. Battleships became too labor intensive for their limited scope of operation. The same number of crew aboard an aircraft carrier is much more cost effective.
New Jersey is on my bucket list to go see. Touring the USS North Carolina this Saturday!
If I recall correctly, the Montana Class was designed to be more of a return to the "standard type" battleship in terms of speed. This would have made it considerably slower when compared to the previous three classes of fast battleships. Even if completed, the Montanas wouldn't have been able to escort the carriers and couldn't keep up with the speed the Navy liked about the Iowas. If completed, they probably would have had a service life similar to the Alaska Class, while the Navy would have still retained the and used the Iowas just as it did, simply because it was easier to rapidly deploy the Iowas.
As a guess, I would think another hindrance to the Montana Class being completed swiftly would be some of the technological innovations that they would want to integrate into the designs.
As for your question, the answer is none. I play War Thunder. In that game I have unlocked several Tier III vessels in the American set.
With all of the other nations, I am just Tier I in Naval because I mostly play Air and Ground vehicles. Yes, all three realms in a single game.
US could have built all the Montanas and the larger Panama canal locks if it hadn't provided half of all the rolled steel used by the USSR during World War Ii.
Clever! Using artwork from your sponsor to add color to the historic B&W footage.
Thank You for your time
Skilled labor/shipwrights it takes a lot of man power to build those ships
Well this Montana class would have started in 1943 at its earliest, it wanted 4 3-barrel turrents, alot more armor, longer production time, more resources, more crew, and it will go slower in the water. Also the battleship importance in the Navy was deminshed
Considering how far along Kentucky was and they were starting Illinois.Had they been completed, I wonder if New Jersey would have been reactivated during Vietnam or if they would have just used those ships since they were newer.
By Vietnam, Kentucky's bow had already been attached to Wisconsin after its bow was damaged in a collision in 1956.
The age of the battleship had ended. There were two more Iowa class hulls never completed because the priority for materials had changed not just to carriers but to landing craft. The machinery and the guns were already manufactured but the war had different material need for the steel. The machinery for Illinois and Kentucky was later used by the Navy to construct four very large and fast replenishment ships of the Sacramento class.
I, was on the New Jersey. In 1983, off the coast of Lebanon and we, fired our 16 inch guns for 10 straight hours. President Reagan said don't stop until I, tell you! If any of you can imagine all that time we, started to think when are we , going to stop.
I feel people take it for granted that the Iowa Class has survived as they could have very easily been sent for scrap because the Government decided they were not worth keeping
It was too late to cancel them and they made excellent escorts for the carriers with their speed and aa armament
I am frankly surprised that all four of the class found "happy homes" as museums, I fully expected Iowa and Wisconsin to be stricken and scrapped like two of the three Des Moines heavy cruisers were. Because of the turret explosion Iowa was considered to be in the worst shape of the four and of course neither she nor Wisconsin were going to be able to find a berth in their namesake states so I thought they would be goners. I always knew Missouri would be preserved because of her role as the stage for the Japanese surrender (should have been Enterprise IMHO.) New Jersey was the first surprise, and then Whiskey and Iowa.
After the turret explosion on Iowa, I expected her to be scrapped.
@@robertf3479 Why was New Jersey a surprise? She's the most decorated battleship in naval history. As a matter of fact, New Jersey is more historical than Missouri. I DO love Missouri, don't get me wrong. However, her only achievement was, as you stated, the site of surrender for the Japanese. It would've been a crime to scrap New Jersey the same way it was a crime to scrap the Big E (which was also a highly decorated vessel).
@@NFS_Challenger54 How can she be the most decorated Did she ever even sink another warship?
Bottom line, there were only a limited number of graving docks large enough to build Ticonderoga, Iowas and Midways. It would have taken many months and much manpower to build even more 1200' long graving docks during a shooting war. You could build 2 or 3 Atlanta AA cursors in space for one Montana, and the Navy needed more AA resources.
Wish we could get a future proofed battleship, I recall seeing designs for a large ship bearing quite a few railguns and laser batteries, and possibly on either a traditional hull or a catamaran. Either one would have been amazing!
It is said that a weapon system goes through a lifecycle, where the first of it is always offensive, it gains defensive capabilities until the defense of the system requires more than the offense can give. That is a good description on why the Montana's were not constructed. While their offensive systems were grand, the same could be accomplished with the aircraft carriers of the day, and more was promised. The battleships required a lot of their systems be devoted to anti aircraft and anti sub, which limited the big gun capability. We can argue that the escort of either ship would be the same, but the power projection of the aircraft carriers held much further range (think of the battle of Midway being fought with one side having only battleships), and the defensive systems (aircraft) of the carrier were the same ones as the offensive(again, aircraft). With the advent of radar and scout planes, aircraft carriers offensive range made them better suited for the battles of WWII and beyond. Some of these arguments were being stated across the Navy in WWII, and the days of the big gun carrying officers became a career shortening opinion. It is also postulated that we build our defenses for the last war, but that's another comment.
Another factor was the Panama Canal. The previous battleships: North Carolina, South Dakota and Iowa class were all 108 feet wide. So they could just fit through the locks of the Panama Canal, which were 110 feet wide. You can find pictures of this online to see what I mean. As Ryan points out, the only ship yards that could build a ship of this size were on the east coast. As the Montanas were 121 feet wide, to reach the west cost and the Pacific, their planned operational area, they would have had to go via Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope. So the long way around. Some brief consideration was given to widening the locks of the canal to 125 feet, but this would have closed the canal during construction. Not an realistic option in wartime. Also the same industrial capacity limits the USA encountered during the war would have been a limiting factor on expanding the canal's locks as well.
There were plans to dig a parallel canal with the dimensions to fit the Montana's size but this was never carried through with due to the delay in their construction and final cancelation. This plan would allow the current canal to remain open during construction of the new one.
To anyone who reads this comment, I find it funny as I listen to this video I am/was playing WoW-L; commanding the German battleship Gneisenau. It's a battleship before the Bismarck. I did reach the goal of having the Bismarck, but since the grind for the green stars is long I decided to sell her and still use the Gneisenau. Yes, the Gneisenau only has 6 main guns which are below average for caliber size. However, getting her fully upgraded in acceleration and increasing her HP, she can travel at 32 knots and, what I like about her the most, is that she can launch three torpedoes from her port and starboard sides.
I'm also using her to grind for the green stars to get the Colorado, and then the Iowa. On the other hand, both the New Mexico and Colorado are slow ships; the New Mexico can only travel at 21 knots and it's annoying.
STS being broadly equivalent to Class B armor, as well structural is why they used it so extensively in ship hulls and superstructures, including destroyer hulls. But STS wasn't included in the "armor plate" numbers of tonnage for ships, and neither was the armor used in tanks, especially cast hull tanks and turrets.
In addition to the ten new builds....many of the standard class battleships were repaired and upgraded at the same time also tying up drydocks and resources
Yes the navy finished the war with 23 operational BBs At that point a couple of more would not make the slightest difference to the war effort.
I have long thought that the reason for these decisions, related to the reason Ryan listed, is that the type of warfare that was being seen on the oceans around the world did not call for battleships if they came at the expense of the various other ships like carriers and cruisers, let alone the LST variants that had to be built somewhere. It comes down to making hard choices.
Other reasons for not constructing the Montanas?
Start with a finite number of sailors to crew the Montana-class battleships. The peak number of Americans in naval or military uniform was something like 13 million with around 18 million serving during the period 1939 to 1946. Many of the people in uniform on Pearl Harbor Day were not physically capable of deployment to combat zones overseas--Captain Ronald Reagan, US Cavalry, was one of those due to severe myopia. Where would the sailors come from to crew a Montana? Wouldn't those sailors be better used on another Essex-class carrier or on several fleet oilers? That's just ship's crew--support for the battleships required ports, anchorages, advanced naval bases and the ships needed to service them--plus underway replenishment.
Next is a limited amount of money. The USA ran everything on a dollar basis--except when the government could ignore costs. Even sailors needed to be paid! The most expensive program was the B-29 bomber, followed by the atomic bomb--together they're just shy of six billion 1945 dollars. That doesn't include the cost of seizing and supplying forward area bomber bases. The atomic bomb raids on Hiroshima and Nagasaki could not be done from Omaha due to technical limitations of Army Air Force aviation. On the other hand, the Montana-class battleship had to be within 20 miles of the Japanese home island coast to bombard the shoreline but the B-29 base could be 1500 miles from the Japanese home islands and still burn out cities. This money was raised by taxes, by bond sales, and by printing more money, but there was a limit to all three.
The labor force was stretched to its maximum during WW2. Otherwise "unemployable" workers were all but drafted into labor armies to keep the fighting forces supplied. The shipyard workers that Montana-class battleships required for their four-year build could have launched hundreds of Liberty and Victory ships.
Supporting the labor force meant feeding and housing them. Farm labor was so short that German and Italian POWs were employed in agriculture. There was a 1945 mass shooting in Utah when an off-duty soldier climbed into a guard tower and sprinkled the tents containing captured German soldiers with machine gun fire until the soldier ran out of ammunition. Food was rationed so that "nobody starved" during World War Two, and if someone was in dire straits, they were attended to. If they were workers, they frequently were provided a free hot meal in the factory's canteen. Housing was a significant problem. I attended boot camp at MCRD San Diego back when there was a naval recruit depot next door. I grew up around military and naval relatives, most of them who had experienced WW2 at home and some were on battlefields. Housing was in such short supply that some warehouses were converted to worker barracks--despite the extreme need for warehouses. It didn't quite get to the flop house stage (flop houses seem to have been converted to comply with government housing standards, low as those were) in order to meet the need for more housing. I was a volunteer at the Hill Aerospace Museum and there were some exhibits on home front housing for the massive Hill Field Air Depot. Travel to the east a couple of hours and the smaller Wendover Field Museum has exhibits on how the families of personnel assigned to Wendover had to be creative in their search for housing--decaying relics of the base personnel's housing are being restored. San Diego still has large shipyards and a US Navy base--my relatives talked about how hard it was for workers to find housing.
That is, if you could find the warm bodies capable of doing shipyard work.
The two biggest constraints were shipyard space and armor plate. Workforce and money were next. Then there was feeding and housing the workforce. The limited number of sailors had to come from somewhere. I haven't exhausted the limits on warship building that required prioritizing ships other than the Montanas.
Time is a factor that I cannot place because time cannot be reduced to mere money--and because WW2 was expected to go on into 1948 a few days after Pearl Harbor. Everything was needed NOW.
Hi Ryan, I drove up 2 summers ago to donate a large model of the battleship U.S.S. California BB-44 that I had built in the early 2000's. Including the plexiglass cover over the model. Were you ever able to use it in any exhibit? Our city Jacksonville, FL just got the USS Orleck a few months ago & they will be having their grand opening I believe on Memorial Day weekend. I have driven past where she had been anchored & I am looking forward to visiting the Orleck when she opens. Hopefully you can visit our memorial ship like you have done so for so many other memorial ships. PJ
Good afternoon,
The amount of construction, plus the delivery of the war time equipment, it had to be reassess. They weren’t going too have, the amount of materials needed to sustain the two fronts they were engaged in. If Midway wasn’t as successful as it turned out to be, and the loss in navy assets became, the loss of two carriers along with half of the escorting ships, then having to hold back the Japanese battle fleet ( the factor being battleship Yamato), the need for the Montanas would have to be reassess, which included the needed slips and docks for advanced production. The nation would have the ability to build and/or replace Battleships as well as losses in the carrier forces, therefore the immediate need to build the Montana class would not be necessary. If the last two Iowa battleships were completed, with the number of ships increased with fore mentioned needs and given the increased armour and updates to the Iowa class, they would have been enough. Upgrades in the armour and adjustments was necessary to improve the ship design. This would be faster, adding more value with less expense. Kentucky would not received as much armour upgrades as she was in the final phase of its completion. The number of Iowa’s could be extended by the navy estimates and production would have been faster. This would allow the use of the Panama Canal, which would be advantageous to the fleet.
The European convoys would have to be reassess at the expense of the Russian convoys. By reducing war materials to the Russian campaign, the materials would be re addressed, as the German armies had been weakened to the point that the Russian forces was now producing their own combat assets and thus hold their own. The European continent was the second most important piece to the puzzle. By this time, the Canadians had increased production of corvette and frigates to protect convoys thus increasing the cover of protection, and to destroy U-boats. The national ability to replace losses of carriers in the Pacific theatre was astonishing . Thank God, the battle at midway had been successful and the strains on ship building was not tax further and the need for the Montana Class had been relieved. Either way the navy had the backing of the President. That is my analysis of what the question asked. The need for the Montana class was not needed although most navy personal would have loved to see them built.
Forever in His service