I had this argument with a coworker a couple months ago. I put the stream on my work computer of New Jersey going into drydock. My coworker made a comment about needing to visit our local battleship museum. That museum is the destroyer Edson. I corrected him, but he insisted it was a battleship. I told him that our local ship weighed as much as one of New Jersey's turrets. I even pulled up the Wikipedia articles for both ships to show the weight differences. It was only when I found a picture of an Iowa next to some destroyers in mothball that he understood how big the battleships were.
Not to be a creeper, but I definitely know your general area. I try to get to the Edson a couple times a year so the kids can see it! Imagine a BB in the river! Cheers!
Most people don’t spend any time around large vessels, civil or military, and don’t appreciate how large they are. Unless one happens to live near a warship museum, they have nothing to compare it to. We are lucky in the Philadelphia area to have New Jersey just across the river from Olympia and if you stand on one and then the other, looking across the water at its neighbor, you get a very good idea of the size difference!
I get really annoyed when they call other types of warships "battleships". Like when the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva was called a battleship back in 2022 by the press. Drove me up the wall!
The press are generally idiots. They just want get views and ratings. Accuracy is not high on the priority list. Shock, awe, fear and buzzwords …things that are gripping are what matters to them . They tend to pander to entertainment over accuracy.
AP Style guide is reportedly to blame. That’s what told journalists battleship and warship were interchangeable. That’s their Bible so we are by definition wrong .
@@GrahamCStrouse Hence 'To paraphrase ...'. The point of Ryan's video is how the definition of battleship is subject to interpretation , especially over time. The gist of Justice Stewart's remark applies in this case.
A battleship is big enough to destroy that which it cannot run from. A Frigate is fast enough to get clear of bigger battleships. This was in the days of sail.
To stay in the battle the ship must be tough enough to withstand repeated heavy battering. The RN's 18 inch gunned light cruisers would not have lasted long in a fight. One was turned into an aircraft carrier and easily sent to the bottom by 11 inch shell. Had she still had the 18 inch gun the problem would be hitting the target. Battleships were crewed to have spare people able to repair damage and replace dead or wounded sailors. Meanwhile there would be very many parts of the ship shut off from each other to restrict damage spreading.
@@Lupus_IndomitusIn a flat calm there would be ships which could catch a battlecruiser of the period. But even cruisers, with a few specialist ships, were not fast enough to be able to get close enough to a well handled battle cruiser to hit it while being destroyed.
Living in Corpus Christi, Texas, I was once on a pier from which you could see the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier from. A man saw my boat hat from when I was in the Navy, and told me he had just earlier that day "Been to the battleship". I cringed inside, and tried to helpfully correct him that it was an aircraft carrier. "Dog, I was just there, I know it's a battleship, it's made for battle."
This is it. People don't know the formal definition and rather than accept a correction, even a polite one, would rather rationalize a way to being philosophically kind of right. And any scary looking armored land vehicle is a tank, even on wheels, even if it doesn't have a gun.
For those wondering, the video thumbnail is the USS Little Rock (CLG-4) taken from the deck of the USS The Sullivans (DD-537), both located in Buffalo, NY.
Hard to define due to the changing standards over time. I would definitely say that the Iowas, Yamatos, and the Vanguard are most definitely the epitome of what a Battleship became both in intentions and effect.
Jup. Basically, superbattleships. No longer ships that have either big guns and have strong armour, but are relativly slow, or big guns and fast, but weak armour. Instead having all three.
The game "Battleship" includes battleships , cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft carriers, so that is partially responsible for the confusion.
My father's early WWII era Bluejacket 's Manual described a battleship as a warship capable of exchanging he heaviest blows with the enemy. Carriers were still lumped with cruisers.
Lol! This frustration over ship classification has become very amusing to myself. Twenty years ago, I rolled my eyes and would have agreed with the video. The funny part is budget battles over warship funding. Has so blurred just what the actual classification of what a war ship is. There is a growing tendency to call every combat capable warship a battleship. Indeed there are a lot of science fiction books. That designate large space ships as battleships. Even though their weapons are mostly missiles. Today's Arleigh Burke destroyers are as big as most pre world war II, treaty cruiser designs. They are also far better armored, than one might expect. Line of battle ships, were the main line combat ships. From the 17th century until the end of WW-II. Arguably the current "destroyer" designs worldwide now fill that niche. Especially as some navies have started building "frigates" displacing over 7,000 tons! The public is ready to call them all battleships and have done. So? I just have to sit back, pop, a beer, and have a good laugh! Fair winds and following seas!
I want a video on just those! (you know, a short which ones they are, how accurate) I have most of those, but I am not sure on all of them, especially the one with the green on the side and turrets. Polish? I know there was / is green on the Orzel sub.
A battleship is a heavily armed and armored warship with a main battery exceeding 10 inches 254mm that can resist other heavy caliber artillery and doesn’t have substantial gaps in its armor.
Not all battleship were 10” guns or larger. Let’s not forget the Austro-Hungarian Navy, whose battleships up to the final units of the Erzherzog Karl class commissioned in 1907 were armed with 9.4” guns.
The Alaska and Guam were perfect examples of throwing a wrench into the works. Too big and powerful to be called cruisers, but not enough to be considered battleships. And then there's the definition of battlecruiser. Annnnnnddd then there are the Kirovs...
A heavy gun-armed and armoured warship specifically designed to meet and beat opposing ships of similar type in face-to-face battle. Not what most battleships actually did most of the time, but that's the core idea of their design. Sets some "weird" and late ships out of the line somewhat, as they were designed with other missions in mind, yet still carrying some design legacy.
I, some guy on TH-cam, say that the terminology of "Battleship" is not just a measure of firepower & protection, but also the doctrinal role of the ship. Ask 3 people what class of ship Bismarck is and you'll get 3 different answers. As best I can tell, a Battleship is indeed the biggest & baddest directly fighting ship of the fleet, but critically operates as part of an organized group (as in Task Force as used by the USN, or you could even say, line of battle) with other Battleships and/or Cruisers whose mission is to fight other naval groups and bombard shore targets.
In modern naval parlance: Battleships are obsolete museum pieces... The last time they were used: A warship armed with guns that are able to defeat the armor of its nation's cruisers at any engagement range]; mounted in 3+ turrets with 2-4 barrels per turret. Armor is enough to defeat its nation's cruiser-caliber main guns at any range and its own guns at medium range. Speed is determined by how much space is left over in the largest hull that can be produced by its nation, after weapons, armor and crew. That sums up the design philosophy as close as possible, as battleships' main prey were shipping and enemy cruisers [aircraft carriers, submarines, and torpedo boats hunt battleships]. Cruisers are similar but against destroyers/corvettes/frigates/whatever your country calls light warships, with enough speed to evade battleships and escort carriers. Armored/heavy cruisers carry battleship grade armor, battlecruisers are cruisers with battleship armament. And for those who may decry my saying Battleships are obsolete: Ryan himself said we have no source of ammo or replacement barrels for the main guns. Meaning if some senile fossil in congress re-activates New Jersey, she will only have her 5" and missile complement, making her an Armored Cruiser version of a Ticonderoga or Arleigh-Burke. For the crew required to sail a single Iowa, you can crew around 6 of the smaller vessels. You can crew a Cruiser with the same number of bodies that it takes to operate the obsolete main battery of an Iowa [close to 100 per turret counting maintenance and loaders]. The last time Battleships were as powerful as people think they still are was 100 years ago [when aircraft were still lawnmowers with wings and missiles didn't exist]
You want a subject that will give even more headaches. "What is a Battlecruiser?" HMS Invincible (1907) started life as an Armored Cruiser. The 1920 G3 design was classed as a battlecruiser even though she packed thicker citadel armor than an Iowa class and HMS Vanguard started out as a "Battlecruiser" on paper because 30 knots . . . and what are Scharnhorst, Kronshtadt and USS Alaska exactly?
With its 32,600 tons, the Scharnhorst was a battleship (schlachtschiff) even though the ship only had a main armament of nine 11 inch guns. There were plans to replace these with six 15 inch guns (the same as on Bismarck and Tirpitz), but the plans were never carried out before she was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape in 1943.
Back before the Internet existed (open to general public in 1992) I had a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships. It listed the Alaska class as battlecruisers. Wasn't until Drach's channel covered the Alaskas that I got a corrected definition.
@@michaelmoorrees3585well, you can theoretically call the alaska's battlecruisers, since they fit the definition well enough. But large cruiser is a better word that is correct.
Then is there a specific category definition for “pocket battleship,” as I think the Graf Spee was called? Or was this just a one-off that lived somewhere in the space between cruisers and battleships?
A curator hair line is a stress measurement like KPSI, LBS square inch, Kilotons and a smack to the head. One curator hair = one really dumb question. Ryan the curator Q ball with Sharks with frigin laser beams on their heads
Thank you, interesting and informative article! I think the definition of "capital ship" according to the Washington Naval Treaty makes sense, and not just for the era of the treaty: A ship with a displacement of more than 10,000 long tons, armed with guns of more than 8 inches. If the capital ship is armored against projectiles of its own caliber at a combat range of about 1 nautical mile, it is a battleship. I realize that this would make most battlecruisers, except for the British "Invincible" and "Indefatigable" classes (and of course the silly light battlecruisers of the "Furious" class), battleships. But battleships and battlecruisers cannot be clearly distinguished any more than frigates and destroyers can today.
Trying to explain Naval Terminology to Civilians is next to impossible. I am Retired Navy. Served in CRUDESPAC. One Cruiser & 4 Destroyers. Was a Deck Rate, Signalman. No one but us knows and has seen the Majesty of a Naval Battle Group. Proud to have served in the United States Navy.
I remember one of my friends visiting Halifax and calling our frigates, battleships. I immediately responded to her IG stories and gave her an educational lesson on types of boats, what ours was, and their roles. She just laughed and said. "Well, of course you[Victor] know. You love this stuff."
For those of us with our own Iowa-class battleship, we tend to look down on anything: smaller, slower, less well-armored, and carrying fewer, smaller guns. Now, throw in a few missiles and you've really got something special.
As long as there are Naval warships, some people will refer to them as Battleships. You won't be able to change that. You can change how you react to that when you hear it
The best way to say it the largest most powerful class of ship designed for fleet engagement in any era. Note the Britts even had a habit of reclassing ships downward as bigger more powerful ships replaced them on the line. A first rater would later become a second or third rate and in sail days a few even was often after a yard modification dropped to a frigate or sloop (Sloops were normally 2 mast and line ships 3 so at times a sloop might out gun a line ship). The biggest issue is so many fleets with so many design and fleet configurations. The US frigates due to speed and heavier broadsides of the day won fights with second and third rates, causing the British to order never engage one with out a two to one advantage with larger ships. The key change in tech with frigates and some lighter French corvettes was instead of square framing they used frames that angled to the center of the keel. this made the ships longer, faster and with 2-3ft thick old growth oak haul the best wood armor ever used. USS Constitution remains active not just in name but they turn her once or twice a year and minus yard time kept ready for sail. America advanced but it wasn't until after the civil war did we start building ships we called Battleships and were tied to Teddy Roosevelt, first as under secretary of the navy and later as POTUS as the man behind the feet. It was often called Roosevelt's Great White fleet with the Maine as an example. Some battleships of that era made it to WWI and like the Brits got reclassed downward to Cruiser with Dreadnoughts like Texas taking the roll they had before.
A❤ battleship is defined by its singular engineering optimization. Biggest guns you can get. Speed aendurance and ease of building and operation take a back seat, aviation and torpedoes and anti-aircraft take a back seat, they are guns with ships built around them. Even the armor is there reluctantly, just so the guns don't sink.
A "battleship" is any warship whose main weapons system is artillery (not planes or missiles) and having a displacement within 5% of the largest displacement in that navy AND is declared to be a "battleship" by the navy in question in the principal language of that navy. Further, once a ship has been declared to be a "battleship" it will remain a "battleship" for eternity even if much larger displacement ships are build later.
As Ryan says, the term "battleship" comes from the original "ship of the line of battle". In the age of sailing ships, this was usually shortened to "ship of the line", and with the introduction of steam and steel, it was shortened to "battleship". However, in the Imperial German Navy, the Imperial-Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy, the older term "ship of the line" was retained even in the Dreadnought era. In Germany, battleships were no longer called "ships of the line" ("Linienschiffe") but "battleships" ("Schlachtschiffe") since 1936, with the "Scharnhorst" class.
IJN _Yamashiro_ and _Mogami_ beg to differ, having taken multiple 14” hits from _California_ and _Tennessee_ . Modern photos of the _Bismark_ wreck reveal her armor was pierced multiple times by the 14” fire from _King George V_ . Fisher Price toys they were not.
@@jacksons1010 I should of been more specific. Was not referring to other battleships as ones you mentioned. But to modern day ships attempting to classify themselves as "classic batteships" with their missiles and one small deck gun. As for the 16" part, just put that number in jokingly cause that's what jersey is. Could of been any size.
i define a battleship as something i don't want to be on the receiving end of their heavy guns. Heard stories from buddys in 'Nam about what the New Jersey did.
My definition of Battleship is this. A class of warship that is a Capital Ship whose primary offense is a a battery of large caliber(10in+) guns, and is armored to resist fire from the same. This does get a little blurry with the overlap of the later battlecruisers like HMS Hood and the Kongos and fast battleship like the Iowas, but I think it works for the most part.
@@GrahamCStrouse I can understand where you're coming from, but there is a reason I included the Hood in the overlap category between battlecruisers and fast battleships. Hood had been designed and built AS a battlecruiser and the Royal Navy designated her as one. I think it very likely though that she may have been re-designated as a fast battleship if she had survived the Bismark, but unfortunately she didn't.
The appropriate term is a battleboat - she's not a ship. A ship is a vessel with 3 or more masts, all square rigged. Any vessel with masts not all square rigged is a Brig, snow, brigantine, schooner, sloop, cutter etc. depending on how it's rigged. If it's driven by mechanical means alone oars, steam, diesel or gas, it is a boat. 😂
I would begin with the size and strength. A battleship is the largest and most powerful surface warship for close range combat. They're the Heavyweight division. Battleships are the largest, they can inflict much more damage, they're much more well protected. Only another battleship can hope to survive close range combat with an enemy battleship, so if one shows up, everyone else should run away. "If you're a battleship, there's never a bigger fish." (At least that's the goal.) Expanding, this means that on the armour - speed - firepower triangle, battleships can go for amour and firepower. They don't *need* speed: if the enemy runs away, that's a win; and there is (should be) nothing in the enemy fleet that a battleship itself has to run away from. So battleships are usually the slowest warships in the fleet. (But they don't have to be: the Iowas are terrifying because they're also fast. Lots of smaller ships could not in fact run away from New Jersey.) Battleship is short for "line of battle ship" because in the age of sail when a fleet had dozens of major warships, they fought in a long line. Only the large and powerful ships fought as "line of battle ships" : anything too small would just be destroyed, and destroyed so quickly that it wouldn't do any significant damage to the enemy fleet. USS Constitution is not a line of battle ship: if the British Navy had showed up with HMS Victory and friends, Constitution would have stayed out of the way. Battleship is a role, not a name. In the age of sail they were called "ships of the line" as well as "battleships". In the 19th century we got "ironclads". In the early 20th century they were called "dreadnoughts", and the older battleships retrospectively renamed as "pre-dreadnoughts". Finally in the 1920s everyone started calling them "battleships" again. Aircraft carriers can beat battleships because that is sniper rifle vs heavyweight boxer. If New Jersey can get close enough to an aircraft carrier New Jersey will win, but that's a big if. Submarines can beat battleships by sneaking up and hitting them in a vulnerable spot. A submarine on the surface within gun range of New Jersey wouldn't last long. Well, that's how I would explain what a "battleship" is. Suggestions, improvements?
Mainly it just needs to exclude the glass cannon Battlecruisers like Hood even if the “can take a hit from its own guns” isn’t precise. The post-war Iowa class couldn’t take a hit from their own guns except in weird circumstances but they were at least close.
I visit the Buffalo Naval & Military Park last weekend - chatting with Shane he brought up how many times he hears people say - "Look at the battleship!" regarding the Little Rock. I think you'd be bald there by now! 😄
NOT a monitor! A CAPITAL ship. Size, armour, multiple guns (almost by definition). For fighting other similar ships. So almost a contradiction in 21C terms...
It's not unlike people referring to APC's, Paladins, Amphibious assault vehicles, Bradleys, even light-armored vehicles, etc. collectively as "Tanks." Drives me nuts.
"Fear Nothing" Wonderful terminology! Although the British Empire had it coming - alas! HMS Warspite, let alone Vanguard. Altogether a wasteful Arms Race Frenzy, albeit deeply fascinating. June 2024 A.D.: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same 🙄
And than you have this, and everything goes out the window 😆: "Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class "Panzerschiff" (armored ship), nicknamed a "pocket battleship" by the British"
Pre-Treaty Dreadnoughts are also sometimes spoken of as "Dreadnoughts", 11" or 12" guns, and "super Dreadnoughts", 13.5", 14", 15", and 16" guns (USN and RN calibers). WRT speed, the IJN designed its pre-Treaty Dreadnoughts to be a couple of knots faster than typical 21 Kn battleships, and the RN's Queen Elizabeth class battleships could do 24 Kn. "You know one when you see one," is kind of true. Then there's the USN's South Carolina class ...
Makenzie class ships had more bays and fast firing 3 inch 50 and 70 calibers I worked on them getting ready for reefs I saved lots of stuff from them nice little ships
Sometimes the classification of warships is not so obvious. Let's see HMS Hood. It is a large ship - 860 ft 7 in (262.3 m), heavily armed - 15-inch (381 mm) guns, armored - up to 15 inches in places, fast - 32 knots. Was it a battleship? Officially it was a battlecruiser.
One explenation to that could also be translation errors, since translation software can be bit wacky at times. For example, some just translate word for word, what you input. For example, if one were to tell a translator app to translate kampfschiff, which is a quite common german word for a warship, that translation software could go ahead and translate the two words that make up kampfschiff independently. Which means kampf becomes battle, and schiff becomes ship. And so you went from kampfschiff, a word for gerneral warships, to battleship, a specific class of warship.
My definition is function-based. A warship has to fulfill many functions - commerce raiding, patrolling, anti-submarine warfare, scouting... A battleship is a ship that is min-maxed for ship-to-ship combat.
Reminds me of when people use the term "machine gun" for every fully automatic firearm. Now... if you're discussing the differing line between Battlecruiser and Battleship... that's a proper discussion (as you acknowledge).
Battleship = Line of battle ship. A ship with heavy enough armament and construction to stand in the line of battle. (Usually at least a 3rd Rate ship of 74 guns) Definition of "Ship" = a vessel with 3 masts all square rigged. If it isn't ship-rigged it's not a ship.🤣🤣 There's only one actual battleship in existence and that's HMS Victory.
My wife and I JUST had this discussion. Last week on Jeopardy they had a question where they referred to the BATTLESHIP Enterprise ... Huh? Says I - that's an aircraft carrier ... then my wife says "well aircraft carriers are battleships!" .... NO ... and ... I AM A NAVY veteran. Why argue with me on this topic. Grrrrrr
@tankthebear here's how I see the difference between a battleship and an aircraft carrier, a battleship is a large, armored ship whose artillery is large caliber guns, an aircraft carrier is a large, warship whose artillery is aircraft mostly airplanes.
Battleships were like boxers. Battleships would get in a line and duke it out. Boxers would toe a line and duke it out. Battleships would morph into bigger, faster, more heavily armed warships. Boxing would morph into twelve timed rounds in a squared circle. Boxing would eventually be overshadowed by MMA, just like the CV’s would overshadow the BB’s.
In a different world we have the same problem... for many people, a tank is any tracked vehicle with a gun... very much like Battleships and Warships. The term Tank refers not to tracks and armor, but to the mission. Tanks are mobile, protected firepower with the singular mission to engage targets with direct fire. Many things look like a tank, but are not a tank.
A battleship is a warship armed with big guns, usually between 11 inch and 18 inch calibre, designed to fight in a “line of battle” and basically slug it out with an enemy’s most powerful all big gun battleships. Since 1906 these have been influenced by the design of HMS Dreadnought. Characteristics of a Dreadnought battleship are an all big gun main armament, heavy armour and steam turbine engines ( although not all Dreadnoughts were built with the latter). It is possible to split Dreadnoughts up into three generations: #1 ships built immediately after HMS Dreadnought - majority of WW1 battleships capable of speeds around 20 Knots mostly armed with 11 or 12 inch guns #2 battleships with an “all or nothing” armor scheme, and/or designed for higher speeds with more powerful oil fired engines and with heavier calibre armament typically 14, 15 or 16 inch calibre. Built immediately before or during WW1 and a few after ( last would be Nelson class). Many served in WW2 as well, many after extensive upgrades. #3 battleships built for service after the treaties expired, completed in the 1930s and 1940s, usually larger and faster than earlier vessels with considerably more powerful engines. They were recognisable by the need for antiaircraft batteries resulting in the main armament not appearing so preeminent as for the earlier ships when they were new. They rarely served in a battle line, but had a range of roles. Not exactly short and concise, but briefer than Ryan!
Hello Definition of a Battleship: Aircraft carrier captain, " Negative, negative you are ordered to move your vessel 15 deg west to avoid a collision" Lighthouse, "Negative, you are ordered to move your vessel 15 deg to the East to avoid a collision" Battleship "The is the Battleship New Jersey, please move your lighthouse or we will" Matthew.
That reminds me of when I saw a YT post that was probably AI about a Gerald R Ford "Battleship" carrying F-16s to Ukraine That title gave me more brain damage than people trying to properly pronounce "aye" and "hath"
A battleship is a ship that makes every other class of surface combatant s**t their pants when it hoves into view. Cruisers hope they're not Iowa class so they can get away. Battlecruisers hope its not USS Washington under Ching Lee's command. Destroyers hope they load AP so they dont get blown apart in one accurate salvo. Carriers hope their CAP can help. (Sorry, Glorious. Your captain was a fool - he didn't have CAP up)
So a useful working definition might be: A ship which is the largest class of warship built in its era, excluding aircraft carriers; Which is operated as a capital ship within a fleet; Whose design prioritises firepower and armour over speed; Which is typically armed with large caliber (10"+, or more for later battleships) main battery guns; and which is armoured to prevent damage to critical systems by shells of equivalent caliber to its own main guns. I'm somewhat reminded of the debate about what is a "Tank" vs various types of self-propelled guns and tracked armoured vehicles.
All of us warship history fanatics get hit with that one. My wife found out I always want to politely correct people if the situation warrants it so from then on she called every Navy ship a battleship. A demon, for sure. 😉 Thank you for the explanation. There really are a… …boatload of people who really don't know the difference and everyone should know how awesome all warships are. Ryan? What is the difference between a boat and a ship? When I was in the Navy my commands were aviation squadrons and we deployed to boats. My first boat was the venerable USS _Saratoga_ (CV-60) Yep, I'm a brown shoe. 😉 I hear that back in the day it sometimes came to fists when some Airedale called a carrier a boat.
A battleship? 1) 1/3 of the displace- ment is armor. 2) 8 or more main guns, at least 12", but pre- ferably much more. 3) Speed? Around 18- 21k (or more). Everything else is a mo- nitor, a battlecruiser, or a coastal/pocketbattle- ship or a predread- nought
🤔 . . . My best example of defining a Battleship would be the Space Battleship Yama, I mean, the Imperial Class Star Destroyer from _Star Wars_ . You’re correct in that a Battleship is something that punches hard & takes a beating itself. However, the Aircraft Carriers range & added precision from aircraft makes most of the battleships’ utility pointless, unless we rethink exactly what a newer model of battleships could do. While Aircraft Carriers are basically powerful in speed & firepower (i.e. its ability through its own aircraft), its still a glass canon that needs its own protection. As such, as a means of protecting the aircraft carrier from improvised means, building a new series of ships built off of the Battleship design platform would be the best option. Its main guns, preferably five turrets, one pointing forward, one pointing backwards, one pointing 90° from the ship’s center, & two pointing 45° from the ship’s center, would fire anti-anti-ship missile flak & other anti-aircraft rounds to protect the aircraft carrier(s); preferably two of these ships per aircraft carrier to cover its port & bow, but it can be two per fleet centered around more than just one aircraft carrier. Plus, to reduce the crew requirements, there can be more automation, though I would like to keep things semi-automatic, i.e. the loading of main-gun rounds can be automatic, but there can be a manual override of which of the available rounds is to be loaded next (in _World of Warships_ , I tend to select the next round to be loaded so that after I fire the currently loaded round, the selected round is loaded next). And I know how much ‘flak’ I might get from this, but if you actually put as much critical thinking on bringing back the battleship for a whole new role & purpose as the realism chapter in th-cam.com/video/Hwg1_WFl-_8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0DVR0Lvx-kG4k0ua , you’ll probably come to realize that it’ll provide a new tactical advantage for seemingly unseeable circumstances & such…
Battleships evolved from dreadnoughts. The first dreadnought was a revolutionary design in 1906 with main batteries of very heavy guns and steam turbines for propulsion.
The funniest (and most pitiful) example of this is when Britain, France and US violated their own “no fly” mandate to interfere in Libya’s civil war. Remember the “Flying Battleships” They threw battleship in there semantically in place of a simple frigate in a pitiful attempt to exaggerate capability and threat. Sad! Just plain sad.
I don't think you really need to dwell on specific numbers for definitions. All ship classes are relative to other ships of their era. The pre-Dreadnought battleships were battleships because they occupied that niche, the heaviest gun-armed surface combatants of the time. Trying to use absolute numbers yields absurdities. A first-rate 18th century Ship of the Line was the terror of the seas for its time, but is tiny compared to a 1940's destroyer. Even leaving aside steel vs. wood and long-range rifled cannons vs. muzzle-loading smoothbores, the destroyer threw more weight per minute than an 88-gun ship of the line.
Hopefully I am allowed to say, that some of the non Cobi models are my designs. You can see USS Samuel B Roberts DE-413, USS Kidd DD-661, USS Laffey DD-459 and a squadron of 80' Elco PT boats.
A Battleship has guns, Big guns, the biggest most beautiful guns ever seen. Big, really big, Glorious guns. Going to Make Guns Great Again guns. MGGA BB62
Gotta ask, what was HMS Hood? It’s historically called a battle cruiser, but with her main guns being 15’, it seems unfair. As these terms are so subjective. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong, but to call Hood a fast battle cruiser seems so wrong. I think she was a fast battleship, at the time. Even if she was fast battle cruiser in the moment, I think historically she should be a fast battleship. Or maybe something as crazy as a fast super cruiser. I really thing she fit into a unique design.
Don’t be surprised Ryan, the typical layperson who has just a passing, if any, interest in naval vessels will call any large ship a “battleship” or maybe an aircraft carrier unless they somehow fail to notice the flight deck, assuming they even know enough to appreciate the difference. People who visit ships like destroyers or cruisers probably think those are huge vessels. Most people don’t really appreciate how big large ships really are! I’ve heard people refer to “Olympia” as a battleship. It’s not going to change. Show us all the Cobi models! 😄
I had this argument with a coworker a couple months ago. I put the stream on my work computer of New Jersey going into drydock. My coworker made a comment about needing to visit our local battleship museum. That museum is the destroyer Edson. I corrected him, but he insisted it was a battleship. I told him that our local ship weighed as much as one of New Jersey's turrets. I even pulled up the Wikipedia articles for both ships to show the weight differences. It was only when I found a picture of an Iowa next to some destroyers in mothball that he understood how big the battleships were.
Not to be a creeper, but I definitely know your general area. I try to get to the Edson a couple times a year so the kids can see it! Imagine a BB in the river! Cheers!
Most people don’t spend any time around large vessels, civil or military, and don’t appreciate how large they are. Unless one happens to live near a warship museum, they have nothing to compare it to. We are lucky in the Philadelphia area to have New Jersey just across the river from Olympia and if you stand on one and then the other, looking across the water at its neighbor, you get a very good idea of the size difference!
@@JamesKintnerSomeone needs to steal the Texas and park it next to the Z-Bridge.
Points to Destroyer, THats na ah ba'elship! Points to New Jersey, Thas a ba'elship
What gets me is the fact they designed all of these leviathans without the aid of a computer.
I get really annoyed when they call other types of warships "battleships". Like when the Russian guided missile cruiser Moskva was called a battleship back in 2022 by the press. Drove me up the wall!
Soviet/Russian Kirov class cruisers are classified as battlecruiser by some due to tonnage.
The press are generally idiots. They just want get views and ratings. Accuracy is not high on the priority list.
Shock, awe, fear and buzzwords …things that are gripping are what matters to them . They tend to pander to entertainment over accuracy.
@@petershen6924That’s actually their official designation iirc
@petershen6924 Moskva is not a Kirov. It is a Project 1164 Atlant class cruiser.
@@sirboomsalot4902 Kirov is a Heavy Nuclear-Power Missile Cruiser and Slava a Missile Cruiser by official Soviet/Russian definition.
People using "battleship" & "warship" interchangably is one of my biggest pet peeves!
All battleships are warships but not all warships are battleships. Simple enough.
Same thing happens for tanks. Even for warplanes. I've heard people refer to piston engined bombers as "fighter jets"
Start calling their pet parrot a duck.
The term "dreadnought" being used willy-nilly grinds my gears.
AP Style guide is reportedly to blame. That’s what told journalists battleship and warship were interchangeable. That’s their Bible so we are by definition wrong .
I wasn’t Navy, us soldiers like to keep it simple.
Battleship: a big ass boat with big ass guns.
*Australian accent
"THIS is a battleship."
That's a spoon.
@@franzfanz Oh, I see you've played battleshipy-spoony before.
If Australian it could only be a battlecruiser, as OZ never had a Dreadnought
To paraphrase Justice Stewart: "I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it".
That can lead to a rowboat carrying a BB gun a battleship.
So, battleship pornography?
He was talking about porn, though…
Americans tend to have a violence fetish @GrahamCStrouse
@@GrahamCStrouse Hence 'To paraphrase ...'. The point of Ryan's video is how the definition of battleship is subject to interpretation , especially over time. The gist of Justice Stewart's remark applies in this case.
A battleship is big enough to destroy that which it cannot run from.
A Frigate is fast enough to get clear of bigger battleships.
This was in the days of sail.
Well, thats kind of the definition of a battlecruiser, outgunning what it cant run from, outrunning which it cant outgun.
@@Lupus_Indomitusexactly!
A battleship is big enough to destroy everything that can't run from it
That's the definition of an effective cruiser really.
To stay in the battle the ship must be tough enough to withstand repeated heavy battering.
The RN's 18 inch gunned light cruisers would not have lasted long in a fight. One was turned into an aircraft carrier and easily sent to the bottom by 11 inch shell.
Had she still had the 18 inch gun the problem would be hitting the target.
Battleships were crewed to have spare people able to repair damage and replace dead or wounded sailors.
Meanwhile there would be very many parts of the ship shut off from each other to restrict damage spreading.
@@Lupus_IndomitusIn a flat calm there would be ships which could catch a battlecruiser of the period.
But even cruisers, with a few specialist ships, were not fast enough to be able to get close enough to a well handled battle cruiser to hit it while being destroyed.
You need to publish a guide to your Battleship Wall!
Living in Corpus Christi, Texas, I was once on a pier from which you could see the USS Lexington, an aircraft carrier from. A man saw my boat hat from when I was in the Navy, and told me he had just earlier that day "Been to the battleship". I cringed inside, and tried to helpfully correct him that it was an aircraft carrier.
"Dog, I was just there, I know it's a battleship, it's made for battle."
This is it. People don't know the formal definition and rather than accept a correction, even a polite one, would rather rationalize a way to being philosophically kind of right. And any scary looking armored land vehicle is a tank, even on wheels, even if it doesn't have a gun.
For those wondering, the video thumbnail is the USS Little Rock (CLG-4) taken from the deck of the USS The Sullivans (DD-537), both located in Buffalo, NY.
That is what I thought, it looked familiar.
Hard to define due to the changing standards over time. I would definitely say that the Iowas, Yamatos, and the Vanguard are most definitely the epitome of what a Battleship became both in intentions and effect.
Jup. Basically, superbattleships. No longer ships that have either big guns and have strong armour, but are relativly slow, or big guns and fast, but weak armour. Instead having all three.
The game "Battleship" includes battleships , cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and aircraft carriers, so that is partially responsible for the confusion.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “the Intrepid battleship” living here in the New York metro area…
thought the tourists said it was a parking garage🤣🤣............
Well TECHNICALLY it is a ship meant for battle.
Wtf is the “New York metro area”? You mean… New York? Or do you mean New Jersey.
@@MichaelSmith-pn7imJump in the deep end and see how long you can hold your breath lol
@@MichaelSmith-pn7im But that isn't what 'battleship' means. Words don't work that way.
My father's early WWII era Bluejacket 's Manual described a battleship as a warship capable of exchanging he heaviest blows with the enemy. Carriers were still lumped with cruisers.
Lol! This frustration over ship classification has become very amusing to myself.
Twenty years ago, I rolled my eyes and would have agreed with the video.
The funny part is budget battles over warship funding. Has so blurred just what the actual classification of what a war ship is. There is a growing tendency to call every combat capable warship a battleship. Indeed there are a lot of science fiction books. That designate large space ships as battleships. Even though their weapons are mostly missiles.
Today's Arleigh Burke destroyers are as big as most pre world war II, treaty cruiser designs. They are also far better armored, than one might expect.
Line of battle ships, were the main line combat ships. From the 17th century until the end of WW-II. Arguably the current "destroyer" designs worldwide now fill that niche. Especially as some navies have started building "frigates" displacing over 7,000 tons! The public is ready to call them all battleships and have done.
So? I just have to sit back, pop, a beer, and have a good laugh! Fair winds and following seas!
Ryan, please do a video on the various models behind you.
Great video. My evening is incomplete without a Ryan Szimanski video.
Are those your builds behind you?
Nice looking collection.
I want a video on just those! (you know, a short which ones they are, how accurate) I have most of those, but I am not sure on all of them, especially the one with the green on the side and turrets. Polish? I know there was / is green on the Orzel sub.
@@53ph3ra What brand are those models?
Ryan, how many times have you heard New Jersey accused of being a battlecruiser (just to throw some fuel oil on the fire)?
Every Battleship is a warship, but not every warship is a Battleship!
Ryan, were not going to mention the fleet behind you?!
*we're*
A battleship is a heavily armed and armored warship with a main battery exceeding 10 inches 254mm that can resist other heavy caliber artillery and doesn’t have substantial gaps in its armor.
Not all battleship were 10” guns or larger. Let’s not forget the Austro-Hungarian Navy, whose battleships up to the final units of the Erzherzog Karl class commissioned in 1907 were armed with 9.4” guns.
More or less, I guess. I think your definition is both a little too loose and a little too narrow.
@@admiralbeez8143 here we go
Battleships are like pornography. Like that judge said, I can’t define it but I know what it is when I see it.
So THAT'S why you've been losing all your hair...
The Alaska and Guam were perfect examples of throwing a wrench into the works. Too big and powerful to be called cruisers, but not enough to be considered battleships. And then there's the definition of battlecruiser. Annnnnnddd then there are the Kirovs...
That's not a battleship... there's a battleship. (ht Crocodile Dundee)
A heavy gun-armed and armoured warship specifically designed to meet and beat opposing ships of similar type in face-to-face battle.
Not what most battleships actually did most of the time, but that's the core idea of their design. Sets some "weird" and late ships out of the line somewhat, as they were designed with other missions in mind, yet still carrying some design legacy.
To whomst’ve doesn’t know the difference between a «warship» and a «BaTtLeShIp»
I, some guy on TH-cam, say that the terminology of "Battleship" is not just a measure of firepower & protection, but also the doctrinal role of the ship. Ask 3 people what class of ship Bismarck is and you'll get 3 different answers. As best I can tell, a Battleship is indeed the biggest & baddest directly fighting ship of the fleet, but critically operates as part of an organized group (as in Task Force as used by the USN, or you could even say, line of battle) with other Battleships and/or Cruisers whose mission is to fight other naval groups and bombard shore targets.
In modern naval parlance: Battleships are obsolete museum pieces...
The last time they were used: A warship armed with guns that are able to defeat the armor of its nation's cruisers at any engagement range]; mounted in 3+ turrets with 2-4 barrels per turret. Armor is enough to defeat its nation's cruiser-caliber main guns at any range and its own guns at medium range. Speed is determined by how much space is left over in the largest hull that can be produced by its nation, after weapons, armor and crew.
That sums up the design philosophy as close as possible, as battleships' main prey were shipping and enemy cruisers [aircraft carriers, submarines, and torpedo boats hunt battleships]. Cruisers are similar but against destroyers/corvettes/frigates/whatever your country calls light warships, with enough speed to evade battleships and escort carriers. Armored/heavy cruisers carry battleship grade armor, battlecruisers are cruisers with battleship armament.
And for those who may decry my saying Battleships are obsolete: Ryan himself said we have no source of ammo or replacement barrels for the main guns. Meaning if some senile fossil in congress re-activates New Jersey, she will only have her 5" and missile complement, making her an Armored Cruiser version of a Ticonderoga or Arleigh-Burke. For the crew required to sail a single Iowa, you can crew around 6 of the smaller vessels. You can crew a Cruiser with the same number of bodies that it takes to operate the obsolete main battery of an Iowa [close to 100 per turret counting maintenance and loaders]. The last time Battleships were as powerful as people think they still are was 100 years ago [when aircraft were still lawnmowers with wings and missiles didn't exist]
You want a subject that will give even more headaches. "What is a Battlecruiser?" HMS Invincible (1907) started life as an Armored Cruiser. The 1920 G3 design was classed as a battlecruiser even though she packed thicker citadel armor than an Iowa class and HMS Vanguard started out as a "Battlecruiser" on paper because 30 knots . . . and what are Scharnhorst, Kronshtadt and USS Alaska exactly?
With its 32,600 tons, the Scharnhorst was a battleship (schlachtschiff) even though the ship only had a main armament of nine 11 inch guns. There were plans to replace these with six 15 inch guns (the same as on Bismarck and Tirpitz), but the plans were never carried out before she was sunk at the Battle of the North Cape in 1943.
he and drach have separate videos on the term battlecruiser
Back before the Internet existed (open to general public in 1992) I had a copy of Jane's Fighting Ships. It listed the Alaska class as battlecruisers. Wasn't until Drach's channel covered the Alaskas that I got a corrected definition.
@@michaelmoorrees3585well, you can theoretically call the alaska's battlecruisers, since they fit the definition well enough. But large cruiser is a better word that is correct.
Then is there a specific category definition for “pocket battleship,” as I think the Graf Spee was called? Or was this just a one-off that lived somewhere in the space between cruisers and battleships?
A curator hair line is a stress measurement like KPSI, LBS square inch, Kilotons and a smack to the head.
One curator hair = one really dumb question. Ryan the curator Q ball with Sharks with frigin laser beams on their heads
How do I define a battleship? CORRECTLY! (The way Ryan described lol)
Thank you, interesting and informative article! I think the definition of "capital ship" according to the Washington Naval Treaty makes sense, and not just for the era of the treaty: A ship with a displacement of more than 10,000 long tons, armed with guns of more than 8 inches. If the capital ship is armored against projectiles of its own caliber at a combat range of about 1 nautical mile, it is a battleship. I realize that this would make most battlecruisers, except for the British "Invincible" and "Indefatigable" classes (and of course the silly light battlecruisers of the "Furious" class), battleships. But battleships and battlecruisers cannot be clearly distinguished any more than frigates and destroyers can today.
Trying to explain Naval Terminology to Civilians is next to impossible. I am Retired Navy. Served in CRUDESPAC. One Cruiser & 4 Destroyers. Was a Deck Rate, Signalman. No one but us knows and has seen the Majesty of a Naval Battle Group. Proud to have served in the United States Navy.
I remember one of my friends visiting Halifax and calling our frigates, battleships.
I immediately responded to her IG stories and gave her an educational lesson on types of boats, what ours was, and their roles.
She just laughed and said. "Well, of course you[Victor] know. You love this stuff."
She sounds like a good & patient friend.
@@GrahamCStrouse She is
For those of us with our own Iowa-class battleship, we tend to look down on anything: smaller, slower, less well-armored, and carrying fewer, smaller guns. Now, throw in a few missiles and you've really got something special.
As long as there are Naval warships, some people will refer to them as Battleships. You won't be able to change that. You can change how you react to that when you hear it
The best way to say it the largest most powerful class of ship designed for fleet engagement in any era. Note the Britts even had a habit of reclassing ships downward as bigger more powerful ships replaced them on the line. A first rater would later become a second or third rate and in sail days a few even was often after a yard modification dropped to a frigate or sloop (Sloops were normally 2 mast and line ships 3 so at times a sloop might out gun a line ship). The biggest issue is so many fleets with so many design and fleet configurations. The US frigates due to speed and heavier broadsides of the day won fights with second and third rates, causing the British to order never engage one with out a two to one advantage with larger ships. The key change in tech with frigates and some lighter French corvettes was instead of square framing they used frames that angled to the center of the keel. this made the ships longer, faster and with 2-3ft thick old growth oak haul the best wood armor ever used. USS Constitution remains active not just in name but they turn her once or twice a year and minus yard time kept ready for sail. America advanced but it wasn't until after the civil war did we start building ships we called Battleships and were tied to Teddy Roosevelt, first as under secretary of the navy and later as POTUS as the man behind the feet. It was often called Roosevelt's Great White fleet with the Maine as an example. Some battleships of that era made it to WWI and like the Brits got reclassed downward to Cruiser with Dreadnoughts like Texas taking the roll they had before.
A❤ battleship is defined by its singular engineering optimization. Biggest guns you can get.
Speed aendurance and ease of building and operation take a back seat, aviation and torpedoes and anti-aircraft take a back seat, they are guns with ships built around them. Even the armor is there reluctantly, just so the guns don't sink.
It's semantics. Similar to the debate over the definition of frigates, destroyers and cruisers.
I would define depending on its weight, main battery, and speed.
A "battleship" is any warship whose main weapons system is artillery (not planes or missiles) and having a displacement within 5% of the largest displacement in that navy AND is declared to be a "battleship" by the navy in question in the principal language of that navy. Further, once a ship has been declared to be a "battleship" it will remain a "battleship" for eternity even if much larger displacement ships are build later.
As Ryan says, the term "battleship" comes from the original "ship of the line of battle". In the age of sailing ships, this was usually shortened to "ship of the line", and with the introduction of steam and steel, it was shortened to "battleship". However, in the Imperial German Navy, the Imperial-Royal Austro-Hungarian Navy and the Imperial Russian Navy, the older term "ship of the line" was retained even in the Dreadnought era. In Germany, battleships were no longer called "ships of the line" ("Linienschiffe") but "battleships" ("Schlachtschiffe") since 1936, with the "Scharnhorst" class.
A battleship should be well armored with massive turret guns that fire atleast 16" shells. Anything else is just a Fisher price toy.
IJN _Yamashiro_ and _Mogami_ beg to differ, having taken multiple 14” hits from _California_ and _Tennessee_ . Modern photos of the _Bismark_ wreck reveal her armor was pierced multiple times by the 14” fire from _King George V_ . Fisher Price toys they were not.
@@jacksons1010 I should of been more specific. Was not referring to other battleships as ones you mentioned. But to modern day ships attempting to classify themselves as "classic batteships" with their missiles and one small deck gun.
As for the 16" part, just put that number in jokingly cause that's what jersey is. Could of been any size.
i define a battleship as something i don't want to be on the receiving end of their heavy guns. Heard stories from buddys in 'Nam about what the New Jersey did.
My definition of Battleship is this. A class of warship that is a Capital Ship whose primary offense is a a battery of large caliber(10in+) guns, and is armored to resist fire from the same. This does get a little blurry with the overlap of the later battlecruisers like HMS Hood and the Kongos and fast battleship like the Iowas, but I think it works for the most part.
Some of that overlap by WW2 was due to refits to essentially turn an old battlecruiser into a fast battleship
Hood was definitely a fast battleship. The Kongos were somewhere between BCs & BBs.
@@GrahamCStrouse I can understand where you're coming from, but there is a reason I included the Hood in the overlap category between battlecruisers and fast battleships. Hood had been designed and built AS a battlecruiser and the Royal Navy designated her as one. I think it very likely though that she may have been re-designated as a fast battleship if she had survived the Bismark, but unfortunately she didn't.
Jokes on you, USS new jersey is neither a warship nor a battleship.
She's a museum, and a battlecruiser.
The appropriate term is a battleboat - she's not a ship. A ship is a vessel with 3 or more masts, all square rigged. Any vessel with masts not all square rigged is a Brig, snow, brigantine, schooner, sloop, cutter etc. depending on how it's rigged. If it's driven by mechanical means alone oars, steam, diesel or gas, it is a boat. 😂
Ryan, if they dont get it after this explanation, forget it.
I cringe when i hear people refer to say and aircraft carrier or destroyer as a battleship
A battleship is a ship designed to both inflict devastating damage to the enemy and while taking similar hits from the enemy.
Don't forget about the USS Johnston, the battleship with the 5.5 inch guns.
Sammy B the destroyer escort that fought like a battleship. 🥰
I would begin with the size and strength. A battleship is the largest and most powerful surface warship for close range combat. They're the Heavyweight division. Battleships are the largest, they can inflict much more damage, they're much more well protected. Only another battleship can hope to survive close range combat with an enemy battleship, so if one shows up, everyone else should run away. "If you're a battleship, there's never a bigger fish." (At least that's the goal.)
Expanding, this means that on the armour - speed - firepower triangle, battleships can go for amour and firepower. They don't *need* speed: if the enemy runs away, that's a win; and there is (should be) nothing in the enemy fleet that a battleship itself has to run away from. So battleships are usually the slowest warships in the fleet. (But they don't have to be: the Iowas are terrifying because they're also fast. Lots of smaller ships could not in fact run away from New Jersey.)
Battleship is short for "line of battle ship" because in the age of sail when a fleet had dozens of major warships, they fought in a long line. Only the large and powerful ships fought as "line of battle ships" : anything too small would just be destroyed, and destroyed so quickly that it wouldn't do any significant damage to the enemy fleet. USS Constitution is not a line of battle ship: if the British Navy had showed up with HMS Victory and friends, Constitution would have stayed out of the way.
Battleship is a role, not a name. In the age of sail they were called "ships of the line" as well as "battleships". In the 19th century we got "ironclads". In the early 20th century they were called "dreadnoughts", and the older battleships retrospectively renamed as "pre-dreadnoughts". Finally in the 1920s everyone started calling them "battleships" again.
Aircraft carriers can beat battleships because that is sniper rifle vs heavyweight boxer. If New Jersey can get close enough to an aircraft carrier New Jersey will win, but that's a big if. Submarines can beat battleships by sneaking up and hitting them in a vulnerable spot. A submarine on the surface within gun range of New Jersey wouldn't last long.
Well, that's how I would explain what a "battleship" is. Suggestions, improvements?
Mainly it just needs to exclude the glass cannon Battlecruisers like Hood even if the “can take a hit from its own guns” isn’t precise. The post-war Iowa class couldn’t take a hit from their own guns except in weird circumstances but they were at least close.
I visit the Buffalo Naval & Military Park last weekend - chatting with Shane he brought up how many times he hears people say - "Look at the battleship!" regarding the Little Rock. I think you'd be bald there by now! 😄
That's no battleship -- that's a Talos Cruiser! :D
Oh I love it when you do a video in front of your collection! Those models are so cool
You should wear a Captains Cap.
Fun question: are those Lego warships behind you?
Some are from Cobi and some are MOSs.
Ryan ... I love your passion and do the ones that interest you with #battleshipnewjersey 💯💯🙂 Be well!
Shattlebips and Cattlebruisers!
Are these models on the ship?
I would define American Battleships into these categories:
-Early Pre-Dreadnoughts:
Indiana Class: BB-1 through BB-3
USS Iowa BB-4
Kearsarge Class: BB-5 & BB-6
Illinois Class: BB-7 & BB-8
-Pre-Dreadnoughts:
Maine Class: BB-9 through BB-11
Virginia Class: BB-12 through BB-17
Connecticut Class: BB-18 through BB-22 & BB-25
Mississippi Class: BB- 23 & BB-24
-Dreadnoughts:
South Carolina Class: BB-26 & BB-27
Delaware Class: BB-28 & BB-29
Florida Class: BB-30 & BB-31
-Super-Dreadnoughts:
Wyoming Class: BB-32 & BB-33
New York Class: BB-34 & BB-35
-Battleships:
Nevada Class: BB-36 & BB-37
Pennsylvania Class: BB-38 & BB-39
New Mexico Class: BB-40 through BB-42
Tennessee Class: BB-43 & BB-44
Colorado Class: BB-45 through BB-48 (BB-47 cancelled)
South Dakota I Class: BB-49 through BB-55 (All cancelled)
-Fast Battleships:
North Carolina Class: BB-56 & BB-57
South Dakota II Class: BB-58 through BB-60
Iowa Class: BB-61 through BB-66 (BB-65 & BB-66 Cancelled)
Montana Class: BB-67 through BB-71 (All Cancelled)
My favorit battleship Kamchatka
Well she was clearly a generation ahead at being able to identify enemy torpedo boats lol
NOT a monitor! A CAPITAL ship. Size, armour, multiple guns (almost by definition). For fighting other similar ships. So almost a contradiction in 21C terms...
It's not unlike people referring to APC's, Paladins, Amphibious assault vehicles, Bradleys, even light-armored vehicles, etc. collectively as "Tanks." Drives me nuts.
"Fear Nothing" Wonderful terminology!
Although the British Empire had it coming - alas! HMS Warspite, let alone Vanguard.
Altogether a wasteful Arms Race Frenzy, albeit deeply fascinating.
June 2024 A.D.: The More Things Change, The More They Stay The Same 🙄
And than you have this, and everything goes out the window 😆:
"Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class "Panzerschiff" (armored ship), nicknamed a "pocket battleship" by the British"
lol ... 1:00 this is how to pronounce "Yuck!" and "Amphibious assaultship" together. :D :D
Pre-Treaty Dreadnoughts are also sometimes spoken of as "Dreadnoughts", 11" or 12" guns, and "super Dreadnoughts", 13.5", 14", 15", and 16" guns (USN and RN calibers). WRT speed, the IJN designed its pre-Treaty Dreadnoughts to be a couple of knots faster than typical 21 Kn battleships, and the RN's Queen Elizabeth class battleships could do 24 Kn. "You know one when you see one," is kind of true. Then there's the USN's South Carolina class ...
How about a comparison video of USS New Jersey and USS Salem discussing the differences between Battleships and Heavy Cruisers
I partly blame sci for for some confusion, regarding battleships and battlecruisers, Klingon Battlecruisers, Draconian battleship...
Battleship: That class of warship which, upon appearing on the horizon, causes panic to those opposing it by virtue of it's own strength.
Mister Szymanski, would you like to pronounce Gneisenau correctly, please? You’ll insult a lot of Germans if you don’t pronounce that “G”.
Makenzie class ships had more bays and fast firing 3 inch 50 and 70 calibers I worked on them getting ready for reefs I saved lots of stuff from them nice little ships
Sometimes the classification of warships is not so obvious. Let's see HMS Hood. It is a large ship - 860 ft 7 in (262.3 m), heavily armed - 15-inch (381 mm) guns, armored - up to 15 inches in places, fast - 32 knots. Was it a battleship? Officially it was a battlecruiser.
One explenation to that could also be translation errors, since translation software can be bit wacky at times. For example, some just translate word for word, what you input. For example, if one were to tell a translator app to translate kampfschiff, which is a quite common german word for a warship, that translation software could go ahead and translate the two words that make up kampfschiff independently. Which means kampf becomes battle, and schiff becomes ship. And so you went from kampfschiff, a word for gerneral warships, to battleship, a specific class of warship.
I see Ryan flexing that Cobi Akagi set. I need to get myself some Cobi ships
My definition is function-based. A warship has to fulfill many functions - commerce raiding, patrolling, anti-submarine warfare, scouting... A battleship is a ship that is min-maxed for ship-to-ship combat.
Reminds me of when people use the term "machine gun" for every fully automatic firearm.
Now... if you're discussing the differing line between Battlecruiser and Battleship... that's a proper discussion (as you acknowledge).
Bought a book on battleships
Front cover was a pic of the 6" light cruiser HMS Belfast
It wasn't a very good book
Battleship = Line of battle ship. A ship with heavy enough armament and construction to stand in the line of battle. (Usually at least a 3rd Rate ship of 74 guns)
Definition of "Ship" = a vessel with 3 masts all square rigged.
If it isn't ship-rigged it's not a ship.🤣🤣 There's only one actual battleship in existence and that's HMS Victory.
My wife and I JUST had this discussion. Last week on Jeopardy they had a question where they referred to the BATTLESHIP Enterprise ... Huh? Says I - that's an aircraft carrier ... then my wife says "well aircraft carriers are battleships!" .... NO ... and ... I AM A NAVY veteran. Why argue with me on this topic. Grrrrrr
The Enterprise is neither a battleship nor an aircraft carrier. It is a STARSHIP
@@professorsogol5824,
Constitution or Galaxy class?
@tankthebear here's how I see the difference between a battleship and an aircraft carrier, a battleship is a large, armored ship whose artillery is large caliber guns, an aircraft carrier is a large, warship whose artillery is aircraft mostly airplanes.
@@aralornwolf3140Ambassador-class
Battleships were like boxers. Battleships would get in a line and duke it out. Boxers would toe a line and duke it out. Battleships would morph into bigger, faster, more heavily armed warships. Boxing would morph into twelve timed rounds in a squared circle. Boxing would eventually be overshadowed by MMA, just like the CV’s would overshadow the BB’s.
In a different world we have the same problem... for many people, a tank is any tracked vehicle with a gun... very much like Battleships and Warships. The term Tank refers not to tracks and armor, but to the mission. Tanks are mobile, protected firepower with the singular mission to engage targets with direct fire. Many things look like a tank, but are not a tank.
A battleship is a warship armed with big guns, usually between 11 inch and 18 inch calibre, designed to fight in a “line of battle” and basically slug it out with an enemy’s most powerful all big gun battleships. Since 1906 these have been influenced by the design of HMS Dreadnought. Characteristics of a Dreadnought battleship are an all big gun main armament, heavy armour and steam turbine engines ( although not all Dreadnoughts were built with the latter). It is possible to split Dreadnoughts up into three generations:
#1 ships built immediately after HMS Dreadnought - majority of WW1 battleships capable of speeds around 20 Knots mostly armed with 11 or 12 inch guns
#2 battleships with an “all or nothing” armor scheme, and/or designed for higher speeds with more powerful oil fired engines and with heavier calibre armament typically 14, 15 or 16 inch calibre. Built immediately before or during WW1 and a few after ( last would be Nelson class). Many served in WW2 as well, many after extensive upgrades.
#3 battleships built for service after the treaties expired, completed in the 1930s and 1940s, usually larger and faster than earlier vessels with considerably more powerful engines. They were recognisable by the need for antiaircraft batteries resulting in the main armament not appearing so preeminent as for the earlier ships when they were new. They rarely served in a battle line, but had a range of roles.
Not exactly short and concise, but briefer than Ryan!
Hello
Definition of a Battleship:
Aircraft carrier captain, " Negative, negative you are ordered to move your vessel 15 deg west to avoid a collision"
Lighthouse, "Negative, you are ordered to move your vessel 15 deg to the East to avoid a collision"
Battleship "The is the Battleship New Jersey, please move your lighthouse or we will"
Matthew.
Now do battleship vs battlecruiser, lol. cite your wartime naming convention examples.
That reminds me of when I saw a YT post that was probably AI about a Gerald R Ford "Battleship" carrying F-16s to Ukraine
That title gave me more brain damage than people trying to properly pronounce "aye" and "hath"
A battleship is a ship that makes every other class of surface combatant s**t their pants when it hoves into view. Cruisers hope they're not Iowa class so they can get away. Battlecruisers hope its not USS Washington under Ching Lee's command. Destroyers hope they load AP so they dont get blown apart in one accurate salvo. Carriers hope their CAP can help. (Sorry, Glorious. Your captain was a fool - he didn't have CAP up)
So a useful working definition might be:
A ship which is the largest class of warship built in its era, excluding aircraft carriers;
Which is operated as a capital ship within a fleet;
Whose design prioritises firepower and armour over speed;
Which is typically armed with large caliber (10"+, or more for later battleships) main battery guns;
and which is armoured to prevent damage to critical systems by shells of equivalent caliber to its own main guns.
I'm somewhat reminded of the debate about what is a "Tank" vs various types of self-propelled guns and tracked armoured vehicles.
All of us warship history fanatics get hit with that one. My wife found out I always want to politely correct people if the situation warrants it so from then on she called every Navy ship a battleship. A demon, for sure. 😉
Thank you for the explanation. There really are a…
…boatload of people who really don't know the difference and everyone should know how awesome all warships are.
Ryan? What is the difference between a boat and a ship? When I was in the Navy my commands were aviation squadrons and we deployed to boats. My first boat was the venerable USS _Saratoga_ (CV-60)
Yep, I'm a brown shoe. 😉 I hear that back in the day it sometimes came to fists when some Airedale called a carrier a boat.
A battleship?
1) 1/3 of the displace-
ment is armor.
2) 8 or more main guns,
at least 12", but pre-
ferably much more.
3) Speed? Around 18-
21k (or more).
Everything else is a mo-
nitor, a battlecruiser, or
a coastal/pocketbattle-
ship or a predread-
nought
🤔 . . . My best example of defining a Battleship would be the Space Battleship Yama, I mean, the Imperial Class Star Destroyer from _Star Wars_ . You’re correct in that a Battleship is something that punches hard & takes a beating itself. However, the Aircraft Carriers range & added precision from aircraft makes most of the battleships’ utility pointless, unless we rethink exactly what a newer model of battleships could do. While Aircraft Carriers are basically powerful in speed & firepower (i.e. its ability through its own aircraft), its still a glass canon that needs its own protection. As such, as a means of protecting the aircraft carrier from improvised means, building a new series of ships built off of the Battleship design platform would be the best option. Its main guns, preferably five turrets, one pointing forward, one pointing backwards, one pointing 90° from the ship’s center, & two pointing 45° from the ship’s center, would fire anti-anti-ship missile flak & other anti-aircraft rounds to protect the aircraft carrier(s); preferably two of these ships per aircraft carrier to cover its port & bow, but it can be two per fleet centered around more than just one aircraft carrier. Plus, to reduce the crew requirements, there can be more automation, though I would like to keep things semi-automatic, i.e. the loading of main-gun rounds can be automatic, but there can be a manual override of which of the available rounds is to be loaded next (in _World of Warships_ , I tend to select the next round to be loaded so that after I fire the currently loaded round, the selected round is loaded next). And I know how much ‘flak’ I might get from this, but if you actually put as much critical thinking on bringing back the battleship for a whole new role & purpose as the realism chapter in th-cam.com/video/Hwg1_WFl-_8/w-d-xo.htmlsi=0DVR0Lvx-kG4k0ua , you’ll probably come to realize that it’ll provide a new tactical advantage for seemingly unseeable circumstances & such…
Ironically the people who don’t understand the difference probably aren’t watching this channel.
Battleships evolved from dreadnoughts. The first dreadnought was a revolutionary design in 1906 with main batteries of very heavy guns and steam turbines for propulsion.
The funniest (and most pitiful) example of this is when Britain, France and US violated their own “no fly” mandate to interfere in Libya’s civil war. Remember the “Flying Battleships” They threw battleship in there semantically in place of a simple frigate in a pitiful attempt to exaggerate capability and threat. Sad! Just plain sad.
A Battleship is a heavy surface capitol ship with heavy guns (9" or grater) and protected with armor (usually heavy but at-least reasonable armor).
I don't think you really need to dwell on specific numbers for definitions. All ship classes are relative to other ships of their era. The pre-Dreadnought battleships were battleships because they occupied that niche, the heaviest gun-armed surface combatants of the time.
Trying to use absolute numbers yields absurdities. A first-rate 18th century Ship of the Line was the terror of the seas for its time, but is tiny compared to a 1940's destroyer. Even leaving aside steel vs. wood and long-range rifled cannons vs. muzzle-loading smoothbores, the destroyer threw more weight per minute than an 88-gun ship of the line.
Are those all Cobi models behind you?
wondering this also
Not exclusively, but mostly.
Hopefully I am allowed to say, that some of the non Cobi models are my designs. You can see USS Samuel B Roberts DE-413, USS Kidd DD-661, USS Laffey DD-459 and a squadron of 80' Elco PT boats.
A Battleship has guns, Big guns, the biggest most beautiful guns ever seen. Big, really big, Glorious guns. Going to Make Guns Great Again guns. MGGA BB62
Gotta ask, what was HMS Hood? It’s historically called a battle cruiser, but with her main guns being 15’, it seems unfair.
As these terms are so subjective. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong, but to call Hood a fast battle cruiser seems so wrong. I think she was a fast battleship, at the time. Even if she was fast battle cruiser in the moment, I think historically she should be a fast battleship. Or maybe something as crazy as a fast super cruiser. I really thing she fit into a unique design.
Don’t be surprised Ryan, the typical layperson who has just a passing, if any, interest in naval vessels will call any large ship a “battleship” or maybe an aircraft carrier unless they somehow fail to notice the flight deck, assuming they even know enough to appreciate the difference.
People who visit ships like destroyers or cruisers probably think those are huge vessels. Most people don’t really appreciate how big large ships really are!
I’ve heard people refer to “Olympia” as a battleship. It’s not going to change.
Show us all the Cobi models! 😄