Unfortunately for you Kirishima,mic-checking on any Iowa-class BB is a deathwish,given all the experience USN had learned dealing with Japanese BB are incorporated in her.
As powerful as Iowa is I don't think even she can handle three heavily pissed battleships.
And going by the Emoticons at the bottom Haruna will be the worst of the bunch.
Against all 3 at once? Not so much. But given Iowa can go 33 knots and have the best FCS of all BB during WW2,I say she can run as far as possible then pick them one by one from said range.
Against all 3 at once? Not so much. But given Iowa can go 33 knots and have the best FCS of all BB during WW2,I say she can run as far as possible then pick them one by one from said range.
Let's not forget her Tomahawk and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
As powerful as Iowa is I don't think even she can handle three heavily pissed battleships.
And going by the Emoticons at the bottom Haruna will be the worst of the bunch.
Rebuilt battlecruisers (and reclassified) is a more accurate term. And I'm pretty sure that Jutland proved that battlecruisers simply couldn't go toe-to-toe against true batttleships.
Against all 3 at once? Not so much. But given Iowa can go 33 knots and have the best FCS of all BB during WW2,I say she can run as far as possible then pick them one by one from said range.
If Iowa can fight them one at a time, her armor looks like it'll be up to snuff so long as she angles properly. The Kongou's pretty much have no hope of knocking out her turrets from the front and the barbettes they're seated in can be pretty thick too, though they could damage the barrels of the cannons themselves. The Kongou's on the other hand have to pray Iowa misses every salvo and a not single AP shell hits them. It won't end well.
As powerful as Iowa is I don't think even she can handle three heavily pissed battleships.
And going by the Emoticons at the bottom Haruna will be the worst of the bunch.
...the Iowa was designed to track and engage three separate targets at the same time. While at a disadvantage, certainly, the Iowa would still be capable of winning this.
KizawaShinra said:
I don't mind about knowledgeable comment there, but I hope you didn't forget they are in human form not warship form. (= = "
So, three former welterweight champions against the reigning, undefeated, super-heavyweight champion... I still don't think that will turn out that well for the Kongous.
Let's not forget her Tomahawk and Harpoon anti-ship missiles.
May I remind you that other than with nuclear tips Tomahawks and similar non-heavyweight (see Soviet P-700 or similar for heavyweights) modern anti-ship missiles, with usually (IIRC) SAPHE (semi-armor-piercing high explosive) warheads do not do squat to the main systems of battleships unless they say hit the radar or main fire director or flies down a gun barrel (>_> o rly you're considering this?). Sure, they'll blow a hole when hitting anywhere but the main belt, but that's it. They have NOTHING on battleship shells.
kibehisa said:
So, three former welterweight champions against the reigning, undefeated, super-heavyweight champion... I still don't think that will turn out that well for the Kongous.
Let's not forget that image of six ship-girls mobbing light cruiser oni... post #1951529
Were any one of them actually within shouting distance of her combat power? Nah...
As powerful as Iowa is I don't think even she can handle three heavily pissed battleships.
And going by the Emoticons at the bottom Haruna will be the worst of the bunch.
Well she wouldn't have too, she's 2-3 knots faster then any of them.
But there is no fucking way Iowa can fight three capital ships more advanced then HMS Dreadnought at the same time, that's just not how naval combat works. Luck or incompetence can swing single ship actions rather rapidly, but the larger the numbers get the less this matters since luck and incompetence tend to be universal and fairly impartial and often balance out at the macro scale, but if one side has way more guys they have way more 'dice' to roll looking for that luck so really luck tends to favor the bigger side in practice. 2v1 is dicey, it's not impossible for a single stroke of luck to shift the battle, but it's unlikely. 3v1 is nearly impossible it would take almost unfathomable levels of luck or enemy incompetence for the outnumbered vessel to win such a fight.
The case of Bismark is illustrative, due to it's unusual armor design most very important parts of the ship were extremely well protected from low angle gun-fire (though this came at the cost of other compromises), this did not overly matter much. Two battleships were still able to rain shells on it and while the belt was uniquely protecting the turrets and conning area sure as shit weren't and were rapidly shot through as the range closed down. At that point the engines being intact and the exact level of flooding was largely irrelevant. The ship was disabled as a fighting unit.
This is likely the outcome in a straight fight between 3 Kongou and an Iowa, Iowa may be able to take one with her since her guns are so overpowering that any strike has the possibility to do crippling damage and the Kongou would likely need to close considerably to start readily defeating her own armor and getting best effect out of their guns and as that occurred the chances of landing crippling hits on at least one would increase, but whichever one she focuses on the other two are going to be entirely unmolested and shelling the shit out of her.
It's sort of like three guys in t-shirts bursting into a room with .25 ACPs vs a dude with a .45 and a kevlar vest, the later may have a better gun and protection, but with so many more bullets coming at him it's unlikely he'll drop more then one before the hail of fire coming at him finds something important and unprotected and cripples him beyond further defensive action.
Guardian54 said:
May I remind you that other than with nuclear tips Tomahawks and similar non-heavyweight (see Soviet P-700 or similar for heavyweights) modern anti-ship missiles, with usually (IIRC) SAPHE (semi-armor-piercing high explosive) warheads do not do squat to the main systems of battleships unless they say hit the radar or main fire director or flies down a gun barrel (>_> o rly you're considering this?). Sure, they'll blow a hole when hitting anywhere but the main belt, but that's it. They have NOTHING on battleship shells.
It didn't take armor piercing battleship shells to turn Sodak into a blind, burning cripple.
A thousand pound HE warhead with a delayed action fuse (Tomahawk) exploding in the super-structure is going to do nothing good for basically all communications and fire control systems on a battleship. With regards to ASM, ASM are programmed to home on the center of a radar return, this means most strikes occur near midships and toward the upper part of the hull. Battleship belt armor is arranged to protect the engines and magazines largely located below the waterline, the side hull above the 2nd (armor) deck is basically just shell plating on most post WWI designs. (Kongoug however do to being a floating anachronism is ironically better protected from missiles because she has thinner upper belts that really only serve to properly fuse most shells, but should reject most missiles)
On more modern ships though an ASM would easily pierce the side above the belt, penetrate deeply, and explode as deisnged. The blast would be above the armor deck, but below the bomb deck and deep in the ship and it would be large. It would not penetrate the armor below to directly threaten the vitals, but it could easily start fires, severe communications and wiring, destroy secondary batteries, and generally make a fucking mess of the ship. A few of these weapons into the side could pretty easily sever most links between the citadel below and what's left of the command and control functions above, start large fires, and knock out power to large areas making fighting the ships extremely difficult.
The unarmored ends of course would be even more vulranble and any missiles impacting there could easily open holes that would allow considerable flooding, even if this is contained large holes open to the sea at the waterline in any part of the hull are not something one can simply shrug off. Hits to the bow area in particulate would quickly start to reduce speed and maneuverability as it trimmed down from flooding.
Despite Kongou unusual resistance to side hits high in the hull one could simply set the Harpoon for a top down pop up attack (an optional engagement mode), and since Kongou age means she lacks a worthwhile bomb deck this would devastate the shit out of the upper works about the same in the end. If Iowa has missiles then she should fairly easily be able to blanket each Kongou with enough pin-point accurate and unstoppable HE to have there tops and upper works reduced to flaming wreckage at which point there's a very real chance she could start picking them off with gun fire with very little they could do about it.
So, three former welterweight champions against the reigning, undefeated, super-heavyweight champion... I still don't think that will turn out that well for the Kongous.
But the three are absolutely pissed (especially Haruna), one thing I know is that do not challenge an angry person since you can never win may it be in an argument or in combat whatever advantage you have since they will always do something to bring you down.
Better grab Haruna fast before Iowa turned into a "Nice Boat".
Well she wouldn't have too, she's 2-3 knots faster then any of them.
But there is no fucking way Iowa can fight three capital ships more advanced then HMS Dreadnought at the same time, that's just not how naval combat works.
The Iowa's 16"/50s had 4000 yards on the Kongous' 14"/45s, easy. That's 4000 yards of unopposed range. This is, of course, only useful coupled with the facts that the Iowa could spot Battleship sized targets at ranges much greater than she could actually shoot (60,000 yards) and that she had considerable speed advantage on her three adversaries. She could, quite simply, just perform hit and run operations. As you said, she has 2-3kts on them.
Isolate one Kongou, shell it from afar, and flee whenever another one comes in view. Rinse and repeat. At some point, the Kongous are going to either run low on fuel and be forced to break off the engagement or give up. They have less endurance than the Iowas at any speed.
Either case is still the Iowa's win. At best, the she sinks all three of them, at worst she runs out of ammo and runs away (or forces them to flee), making a laughing stock of the Kongous because in a 3 v. 1 they couldn't do diddly squat.
Lunatic6 said:
But the three are absolutely pissed (especially Haruna) ... Better grab Haruna fast before Iowa turned into a "Nice Boat".
I don't know about that. To me, it looks like someone needs to grab Haruna before she kills herself.
Mental disorders doesn't automatically make anyone a genius or a very knowledgeable person: actually, it makes harder to become one.
The ironic thing is that what Chagen said is easier to be applied to himself...he seems to have a bit of issues.
Oh, and on the question of Tomahawk: was there any kind of anti-ship version of them installed on Iowa-class? It was primarily land-attack missile, isn't it?
The ironic thing is that what Chagen said is easier to be applied to himself...he has a bit of history with these.
Oh, and on the question of Tomahawk: was there any kind of anti-ship version of them installed on Iowa-class? It was primarily land-attack missile, isn't it?
Why bother with anti-ship when you can put a nuclear warhead in a Tomahawk and introduce them to Operation Crossroads.
Oh, and on the question of Tomahawk: was there any kind of anti-ship version of them installed on Iowa-class? It was primarily land-attack missile, isn't it?
RGM-109B, the Anti-Ship Tomahawk, actually was in the inventory at the same time that the Iowas were in service and the Iowas were set up to use them, but I am not aware that they were ever actually deployed aboard an Iowa.
I would not be so pessimistic in a 1v3 Iowa vs Kongo class fight. Iowa was designed for this fight and it shows. She has the speed advantage so she can dictate engagement range. Her IZ against the Kongo guns is huge, from 14,5 km all the way out to 31 km, while Kongo doesn't have one against Iowa, anything that hits pretty much automatically goes through. The combination of a wide IZ and higher speed is a very powerful one, and Iowa is unique for having very heavily armored rudder mechanisms, so a crippling shot in a stern chase is not as likely.
