World of Warships

Italy had really good warships, it was said that Italy's ships could destroy anything they couldn't outrun and they could outrun anything they couldn't destroy.

Their issue was not their warships. They had several battleships and so, the Littorio-class was really good, it had 9x 381mm (15.0") guns and could go at 30kn (37kph, 23mph).

At the onset of WW2 Italy's Regia Marina had following strength:
4 Battleships (+2 under construction)
21 Cruisers
52 Destroyers
60 Large torpedo boats
106 Submarines

Their first main problem with their "Our Sea" policy was that they didn't want to build any carriers. They thought they would at all times operate within range of land bases from which they could get fighter support. However, as it turned out this was not to be the case and they were left with huge gaps of air support whereas Royal Navy brought their own air cover and aerial attack capacity with them.

Italy did have the best torpedo bombers of the entire war. But they were stuck at land bases.

The second major flaw of Italy was the complete and utter incompetence of their high command. Mussolini was a joke. He had a difficulty winning an invasion against Abyssinia with tanks and aircraft whereas Abyssinia didn't even have machine guns. Greeks fought Italy back and conquered parts of Albania. Whole Italy's war effort was a trainwreck.

They didn't want to risk their ships because they didn't have carriers to support them but then eventually they ended up fighting at great disadvantage and lost several ships due to some very bad decisions. Royal Navy screwed them royally.

Overall Italy acted as if it had been one of those useless NPC allies "no one at the stern, doing random shit".

Italy also didn't have much of a moral support for their military dictatorship. If british fired a barrage in front of Italy's attacking aircraft they retreated. Thus the british were in for a surprise when they went later against Japan - japanese pilots weren't deterred by a little bit of flak.

 

the Spanish refusal/inability to assault Gibraltar also pretty much ensured the Italian Navy would remain pretty much irrelevant. As did the Ultra intercepts and terrible Italian radio/comms security that meant the Allies generally knew everything the Italian Navy was doing before Mussolini did. having good ships doesn't mean much when they don't have any interest in fighting and the enemy knows exactly what you're doing and where you're doing it.

 

Yea, it's never good to be exposed but for ships it's especially bad, especially when you don't even have air cover.

By the way, Italy had every shot at simply invading Malta when there were only 43 AA guns on the entire island (1940). Germans didn't have much interest at that point since they weren't heavily involved in Mediterranean but Italy sure was. The strategic situation was so bad that british actually seriously considered withdrawal from Malta so as to preserve the minor forces present there from being pointlessly slaughtered. Iirc it was January 1941 or so when they saw that it hadn't been invaded and started to turn the island into a fortress, a thorn in the belly of axis powers and this partially sealed the fate of Afrika Korps as their supplies were pounded with impunity.

Mediterranean effectively belonged to allies at that point.

Overall West Allies were incredibly superior to axis powers. USA could have pretty much won the whole war even without UK, though having the entire Commonwealth by their side sure did reduce the amount of casualties and shortened the war by years. USA had things like artillery computers on their ships iirc. and they simply had so vast industrial production that they could simultaneously fight a full total war on two fronts against 3 nations while also diverting resources to keep UK and Soviet Union from being overrun.

And all the while throughout the war they managed to keep increasing their industrial capacity whereas everyone else saw their industrial capacity shrink.

In fact, even if Japan had sunk all US carriers at Pearl Harbor it would have only made the war longer. Potentially more nuclear weapons had been used. If Germany didn't fall before Japan then Berlin would be hit by a nuke etc.

One cannot underestimate the importance of industrial capacity and access to natural resources in an industrial war.

It's funny that the axis powers thought americans were playboys and 'useless'. This is much the same critique that is echoed today across the planet - "americans have no stomach for war", "they're pushover, when things get tough they lose heart and quit". Well, it didn't go quite like that and they were prepared to take whole of Japan the hard way if it came to that, despite the enormous loss of life it would have resulted for US troops.


Back to ships, from wiki:
Ship gun fire-control systems (GFCS) enable remote and automatic targeting of guns against surface ships, aircraft, and shore targets, with or without the aid of radar or optical sighting. Most US ships that are destroyers or larger (but not destroyer escorts or escort carriers) employed GFCS for 5 -inch and larger guns, up to battleships, such as the USS Iowa.

....

For the US, the brains were first provided by the Mark 1, later the Mark 1A Fire Control Computer, which was an electro-mechanical analog ballistic computer that provided accurate firing solutions that could automatically control one or more gun mounts against stationary or moving targets on the surface or in the air. This gave American forces a technological advantage in World War II against the Japanese who did not develop this technology, and still used visual correction of shots with colored splashes. ....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_gun_fire-control_system


Also, apparently the british had these kinds of systems too, Japan also was developing them but even their best systems never truly competed with the US systems, lacking gyros etc. and being less practical to use.

 

toured the north carolina again a few months ago (been about 10 years since i last toured it). haven't been on either of the south dakotas or any of the iowas yet. but those computer rooms are fucking huge. 1 of the north carolina class (the north carolina which actually hitler called it the bismark of the united states), 2 of the south dakota class (the alabama and massachussetts) and all 4 of the iowas that were built are still around as museum ships.

the north carolinas are the first of the fast battleships basically the test ships for the type. the south dakotas are streamlined and improved north carolinas. the iowas are "fuck it. lets make these badass because we arn't under treaty regulations for these"

 

I wonder if they will put the Alaska class cruisers in.

 

also some pics i took on the north carolina

 

Iron Fang,

The japanese cruiser I was thinking of earlier was the kitakami which was a kuma class cruiser.

had 5 quad torpedo mounts per side. and it was fast. so in navy field what those players would is go out ahead launch one side (20 torpedoes) quickly turn around and launch the other side for a total of 40 torpedoes. had almost no guns when it was modified.

I doubt they will add that because they seem to be doing more classes of ships but not really individual ships.

 

Kitakami was IJN premium cruiser avalible during CBT, its now inavalaible for purchase, but given that that in current patch there are some buffs to her, she's still in game. So you can one day find yourself on the wrong end...

 

I fired off a bunch of friend invites at some of y'all NA folks!
If you didn't get one, look for Orcinus.

Tread cautiously, though; I've heard he's a bit of a jerk.

 

Just got on to go a few rounds. I was kicking ass in the erie and then got a chester and it sucks. Anyways shoot me an invite Porkins6

 

Is anyone playing EU btw? I didn't check for invites yet (didn't have the chance) but I installed NA as I figured pretty much everyone is playing that. Just in case I happen to be up early enough to catch some of you guys playing

 

Yeah the chester has odd gun placement. Actually alot of the earlier stuff does.

 

Are they those crazy WW1 pre-dreadnought ships that have a billion varying size guns stuffed all over the place in a pattern that somehow looks exactly like they had been thrown onto the ship like darts? Totally the designers didn't just throw darts at blueprints to figure out where to place those guns!


Andrea Doria
(it looks like that massive gun is aiming at it's own chimney)
Yes, 4x 436mm (17") guns and several smaller ones. And 4x 356mm (14") torpedo tubes.

Note the especially clever placing of turrets. Also they're not centered to ship's center line, because,why would they? Instead the main battery is in twin mounts. Laid en echelon amidships:

Groovy?


HMS Triumph

Later pre-dreadnought ship that has those typical countless lighter caliber side hull guns that were common until dreadnought era when they finally figured that if you have 300+ mm main battery, having 10x 100mm guns just slow you down and have almost no impact on the battle other than slowing you down and requiring extra magazines.


Charles Martel

"No! STOP IT! What you need is more guns to main batteries, stop adding those tiny guns all over the place!"

 

Yeap, anyone is.

 

Is anyone in Skjaldborg playing EU btw?

 

Yeap, anyone is.

 

var anyone = AstArRoth.GetAnyone();

var i : int = 0;
Debug.Log("------------------------");
Debug.Log("contents of anyone;
while (i < anyone.length)
{
Debug.Log(anyone);
i++;
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Syntax error on line 1, couldn't find Sigh. Did you mean Signature?

 

"CHOKE, cough, cough" GOOD GRIEF! 40 Torpedos! LOL! "Launch the anti-convoy spread and cover the entire ocean, just in case."