> >"SLH" <sarah.hartw...@NOSPICEDHAMbaesystems.com> wrote in message
> >news:3dc135f0$1@baen1673807.greenlnk.net...
> >> "Fred J. McCall" <fmcc...@earthlink.net> wrote

> >> > You draw a lot of arrows, do you?  Sling stones, too, no doubt.  :-)

> >> Of outrageous fortune ...

> >With raised arms (for the photo pose)?

> >It certainly puts a noble image in the mind whilst sleeping - perchance in a
> >dream.

> >PDR

> Aye, there's the "rub"

> > >> > You draw a lot of arrows, do you?  Sling stones, too, no doubt.
:-)

> > >> Of outrageous fortune ...

> > >With raised arms (for the photo pose)?

> > >It certainly puts a noble image in the mind whilst sleeping - perchance
in a
> > >dream.
> > Aye, there's the "rub"

> Nay; t'was the earliness of the hour that caused the aye rub...

> >This is nonsense, the new Battleships coming off the production line, and
> >the more recently rebuilt ships like QU, Valiant and Renown had
> >significantly better AA defences than WW1.

> Significantly better than WWI, yes. Significantly more effective, no.

> >This is also questionable.  WW1 battleships were very vulnerable to
torpedo
> >attack, as shown by what happened to Marlborough, Moltke in WW1, and
> >Resolution, Barham, Royal Oak and Kongo in WW2 [I'm working off memory
here
> >so there will be other examples].  Some of the modern battleships were a
lot
> >more resistant to torpedoes - with the major exception of where the prop
> >shafts exited the ship.  Look at the minimal impact [from a ship-sinking
> >point of view] of two of the three airborne torpedo hits on Bismark.

> So she didn't sink. But leaking and unable to steer accurately isn't a
> good state for a battleship.

> With air cover. The battleship was only viable when it was operating
> with a carrier force; or under land-based air cover - or when the
> opposition was out of both aircraft and fuel.

> >No more so than an Aircraft Carrier

> Not so. Even a tiny 20,000 ton carrier brings a whole flight of
> helicopters to the ASW party. When there was an overwhelming ASW threat,
> the US carriers brought the S-3 Viking fixed-wing ASW as well. This
> allows the carrier to make a positive contribution to the battlegroup
> ASW effort; rather than being just a burden.

>  I am not sure what you are trying to prove here.

> The suggestion was made that battleships became obsolete because of their
> vulnerability, particularly to the evolving threats of torpedoes and
mines.
> As has been correctly pointed out by another subscriber, battleships
became
> obsolete because they were replaced by another unit which was able to
> deliver a more effective offensive capability.  Anything that can be said
> about the vulnerability of battleships in WW2 could be applied equally as
> validly to aircraft carriers.

> >And the relevance of this to my rebuttal of the comment above is?

> They were all sunk by air-dropped weapons, were they not? (Compared to
> how many battleships in WW1 sunk from the air?)

> >> A torpedo hit would invariably send a battleship home for at least a
few
> >> months of repairs, even a modern one like NORTH CAROLINA (who came
close
> >to
> >> losing a magazine from a single torpedo hit)

> >I was rebutting a ridiculous statement that torpedo defence had not
improved
> >between the wars. Do you have an issue with that.

> Yes, because torpedoes *also* improved considerably in size, speed,
> destructive power, fuzing and even guidance in the same period. (Compare
> a 1945 torpedo to a 1914 weapon)

> The protection had to evolve to match, and was unable to do so.

> >> I'd hardly call Bismark's demise "overwhelming firepower".

> >Let me see:

> Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realise we were counting every single RN ship at
> sea as if they were all firing at Bismark at once!

> (One wonders how they'd manage to get line of sight...)

> One key reason that she was able to be mobbed and sunk... was because a
> slow & sluggish biplane put a torpedo into her rudders. Without that,
> many players were fuel-critical and would have been forced to (or
> already had) turn for home.

> You can take a few battleships, cruisers and destroyers out of the list
> and Bismark is still sunk (was Renown really critical?) But start
> stripping out carriers, and the chance of Bismark reaching a
> German-controlled port rises very fast indeed.

> >> With heavy escort and in conditions of air superiority. And even then,
> >Roma
> >> and Warspite would disagree about 'safely'.

> >Saying Roma was being operated by the Allies at the time of her loss is a
> >severe stretch.

> I note how much protection her mighty armour provided against an
> air-dropped bomb.

> >> Notice, though, the caution with which US battleships operated in the
> >> Pacific, and the withdrawal of British units from the Indian Ocean, in
the
> >> early phases of that war: and the limited use made of battleships in
the
> >Med
> >> in the same period.

> >In the early part of the war, the British BBs were operated very
agressively
> >in the Med, bombarding the Italian mainland on a number of occasions.

> And then what?

> >> What, you don't think the S-3B or the SH-60 were useful ASW assets?

> >Not in WW2 they weren't

> In WW2, the escort carriers were one of several pivot points for the
> Battle of the Atlantic. Air cover over convoys was a huge advantage in
> detecting U-boats and forcing them down. Whether Stringbags, Martlets or
> Avengers, you could strafe & rocket/bomb the U-boat and maybe get a
> kill... but for sure you could keep him down and prevent him charging
> batteries, calling home or going anywhere.

> It wa actually a missile of a type that didn't exist in 1939 - again not
> relevant to this discussion.