1
Mods / Re: Project Ironclads TC 7.1 (2014/5/5) [for 0.6.2a]
« on: June 06, 2014, 07:08:14 PM »Bismarck, Yamato, both very fine ships, both of which met cruel ends, they should totally be salvaged and restored (i'm not paying for that tho)
I would argue that both were pretty horrendous from the cost/effectivity side (50.000 and 68.000 tons at full displacement would warrant some qualitative superiority over their contemporary pars, the Bismarck was objectively inferior to the pretty much contemporary North Carolinas/South Dakotas displacing 10.000 more tons, and the Yamato's lack of proper radar guided control and underperforming AP shells meant that for 15.000 more tons it wasn't really any superior to an Iowa), and from the operational standpoint (Germany didn't need a surface battle fleet at all, nor it could use it in any long-term cost effective way, so essentially both the Schanrhorsts, Bismarcks and Hippers were a huge waste of resources) and the japanese were so mind-stuck in their "decisive battle" mentality that the Yamato class BBs never did anything but cruising around the Pacific, being engaged nowhere, and moving as little as possible because they were massive fuel hogs)
I'd add that in the particular case of the Bismarck it was essentially an overweight, underpar, focus-lacking and extremely expensive actualization of a Mackensen class WW1 battlecruiser, outdated in many details, extremely complicated in many others. That hardly justifies a ship that for it's time was the largest in the world.
And that, just like the Scharnhorsts were little more than confused full size battleships with pitiful weaponry that had a hard time against tinclads as the Renown, the Bismarcks paid in the shape of some pretty major design blunders the cost of a political class that couldn't decide what they wanted a fleet for - nor why did they want battleships for. Other than for the sake of having them, of course. Which barely justifies 84.000 (Bismarcks) + 63000 (Scharnhorsts) + 48000 (Hippers, and the seydlitz was given to the russians!) tons of strategic materials, expensive manpower, millions of Reichmarks, and holding a pretty big chunk of Germany's industrial capacity and resources at a time when the III Reich was massively expanding their armed forces, and the Panzerwaffe had to make do with coca-cola tanks with machine-guns, or czech captured tanks, because the german tank production couldn't cope with the expansion rate because they lacked the manufacturing capacity and the vital materials to mass-build proper battle tanks.
In the case of the Japanese, when such a hard-headed, immobile, inflexible and proud class as the Imperial High Command, with so many battleship defenders in the navy's headquarters, decided that they didn't want a fourth Yamato because it would take so much to build it, and that the third one would be more useful as a logistics carrier than as a battleship; and that the two existing Yamatos were not to be deployed in battle because they took so much fuel and because they feared losing them before their predicted never-to-happen "decisive battle", you only can conclude that the two Yamatos that got to exist as battleships must've been really not worth it. Those ships were always held back in reserve, only to be used when the situation was so desperate for the japanese that they just didn't mind sending them in suicide runs. Was that worth more than 120.000 tons of materials, millions in currency, and stretching the not-that-great industrial output of Japan?. I'd dare say not, even if they had been the best battleships ever - and I honestly don't think they were, which just adds insult to injury.
Both were pretty (Bismarck class battleships must be the most handsome ships ever made), but both were a waste of resources and in the end they costed their nations a lot more than what they offered in return.
anyway, enough of the offtopic. Sorry for dragging it out. I just get worked on each time I see the Bismarck class named as something it was not XD
. Kind of role-playing an "invisible" pirate, who's nominally part of a faction, but not in the military (one would guess that members of the navy would have their combats under check by their high command, and bringing back their ships with combat damage would need some explanation).
.