Sabtu, 10 Desember 2011

Best Battleships of World War II - Facts and Issues

World War 2 - During the dark days of world war 2  people were shocked by the size and power of these great ships, some are now in the bottom of the dusty ocean while others are placed in many World War II   Naval museums.  It is in history at a country to be a superpower should have the best in air and sea.  But to measure the effectiveness of a country's navy is based on its war ships and  tactics. A great country with superb navy can be bitten by just few ships with great battleship and incredible tactics.  So here are the best battleships in the world during World War II.


Check out the The Battleships of World War 1 

10: HMS Hood

HMS Hood spent the remainder of her service operating from Scapa Flow, occupying the North Sea and Atlantic from the menace of German surface raiders. The ship was old, overloaded, and burdened with an insufficient armoring arrangement. However
, her great operational worth had acted through the 1930s to avert the Royal Navy from taking her out of service for a badly-needed modernization, and now it was too late. In May 1941, in company with the latest battleship Prince of Wales, she was sent out to look for the German battleship Bismarck, which had left Norway for the Atlantic. On the morning of 24 May, the two British capital ships met the enemy to the west of Iceland. In the resulting Battle of the Denmark Strait, one or more of Bismarck's fifteen-inch shells got into Hood's after magazines. They erupted in an enormous explosion. Hood sank in moments with all but three of her large crew, a result that shocked the entire Royal Navy, the British nation and the entire World..

9: French BB Jean Bart

On 8 November 1942, during Operation Torch, the French fleet in Casablanca was attacked by American warships and warplanes from the aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV-4). The Jean Bart went into a gun battle with the battleship USS Massachusetts (BB-59). The Jean Bart endured hits from numerous aerial bombs and 16 inch (406 mm) shells. On the 10th, the Jean Bart opened fire once more onto the cruiser USS Augusta, much to the shock of the American naval officers - who thought that the Jean Bart had been silenced by her serious damage. This gunfire drew battle from the warplanes of the USS Ranger, and the Jean Bart suffered two more hits by 500 lb bombs. These opened a drip in her hull, forcing her to be run aground by her Captain. Combat was over by that evening, and along with the rest of French forces in North Africa, she surrendered and then took sides with the Allies of the United States and the United Kingdom.

8. USS Tennessee (BB-43)

USS Tennessee (BB-43), the lead ship of her class of battleship, was the third ship of the United States Navy named in tribute of the 16th US state. For the period of World War II in the Pacific Theater, she was damaged during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 but was repaired and modernized. Tennessee took part in shore bombardments at the Aleutian Islands, Tarawa, the Philippine Islands, Okinawa and several other amphibious landings later in the war, and participated in the sinking of the Japanese battleship Yamashiro   in the Battle of Surigao Strait. After the war, she was placed on reserve in the "mothball fleet" for several years, before being scrapped in 1959.

7. Battleship Roma (Italy)

Roma was commissioned into the Italian Navy in mid-1942, but by then Italy was already showing signs of a fuel scarcity, thus this great warship stay behind in port most often. As according to the secret Short Military Armistice signed on 3 Sep 1943 between General Dwight Eisenhower and Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the Italian fleet was to surrender to the Allies. After Italy declared her surrender in the evening of 9 Sep, an Italian fleet centered around battleships Roma (flagship of Admiral Carlo Bergamini), Vittorio Veneto, and Italia left La Maddalena. At 0800 next morning, the fleet was spotted by German reconnaissance, and Admiral Meendsen Bohlken reported to Berlin. Berlin's response was obvious in retrospect; the Italian fleet was to be smashed to deprive the Allies of usage of those ships. At 1400, German aircraft began appearing and dropped bombs, though all missed. At 1530, fifteen Do 217 attack aircraft began their attack rocket-propelled and guided bombs. At 1545, Roma was hit on the port side, amidships between 90mm AA gun mounts, piercing deck and side; the first hit reduced her speed to 10 knots. Five minutes shortly, she was hit by a second bomb between turret #2 and conning tower, causing a fire that exploded the main magazine, killing many men including Bergamini his staff. At 1612, she turned upside down, broke into two pieces, and sank. 1,350 officers and sailors were lost in the inferno.

6. KMS Admiral Graf Spee (Germany)

The Admiral Graf Spee was one of the most well-known German naval warships of World War II, along with the Bismarck. Her size was restricted to that of a cruiser by the Treaty of Versailles, but she was much more greatly armed than a cruiser due to ground-breaking weight-saving techniques employed in her construction.
She was sent to the Atlantic Ocean as a trade raider in 1939, where she sank nine Allied merchant ships, with a total tonnage of 50,089. Numerous British hunting groups were consigned to locate her, with three British, New Zealand and Australian cruisers finally tracking her down in December 1939. The Battle of the River Plate ensued, during which the Graf Spee was damaged. She docked for repairs in the neutral port of Montevideo, but was forced by international law to leave within 72 hours. Faced with what he believed to be overwhelming odds, the captain scuttled his ship rather than risk the lives of his crew.

5. Battleship Kongo (Japan)

Kongō  was the Imperial Japanese Navy's first super-dreadnought type battle cruiser and the name-ship of her class, which also included the Hiei  , Kirishima  , and Haruna  . She was upgraded to a battleship rating in the 1930s and served in several major naval operations during World War II before being sunk by enemy action in 1944.

4. KMS Bismarck

The German battleship Bismarck was one of the most well-known warships of the World War II. The pilot ship of her class, named after the 19th century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, Bismarck displaced more than 50,000 tonnes fully loaded and was the biggest warship then commissioned.
Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen left Gotenhafen (Gdynia) on the morning of 19 May 1941 for Operation Rheinübung, during which she was to have attempt to intercept and annihilate convoys in transit between North America and Great Britain. When Bismarck and Prinz Eugen attempted to break out into the Atlantic, the two ships were spotted by the Royal Navy and brought to battle in the Denmark Strait. During the short engagement, the British battlecruiser HMS Hood, flagship of the Home Fleet and pride of the Royal Navy, was sunk after several minutes of firing. Two days later, with Bismarck almost in reach of safer waters, Fleet Air Arm Swordfish biplanes launched from the carrier HMS Ark Royal torpedoed the ship and jammed her rudder, allowing heavy British units to catch up with her. In the ensuing battle on the morning of 27 May 1941, Bismarck was heavily attacked for almost two hours before sinking.

3. IJN Battleship Fuso

The Japanese battleship Fusō, was a part of the Imperial Japanese Navy, the pilot ship of the Fusō-class. She was laid down by the Kure Kaigun Koshō on 11 March 1912, launched on 28 March 1914 and finished on 18 November 1915. Her 356 mm (14 in) main gun turrets were placed in an unorthodox 2-1-1-2 style (with her sister ship Yamashiro having her third turret reversed when compared to Fusō) and with a funnel separating the middle turret placement. This display was not entirely successful as the armoured section was needlessly lengthened and the middle guns had trouble targeting. Nevertheless, Fusō's relatively fine hull form allowed her to reach a speed of 22 kn (41 km/h; 25 mph).