What's the best battleship design and why is it the Dunkerque-class?

*sinks your navy*

If you've got the tonnage to spend, 4x2 is better than 3x3 for a battle line ship. Especially if you haven't figured out interrupted firing to reduce the dispersion effects you get in 3 and 4 gun turrets.

not that great a design frankly, it couldnt engage any british contemporary and live, it could only run.

it had speed but not firepower or protection, its belt was weaker than scharnhorst and scharnhorst, let alone something like a nelson class and its guns were a little better than the germans but woefully inferior to anything else, certainly to the british 14inch 15 inch and 16 inch guns

its basically a crappier version of a 1920s british treaty ship

...

Congrats for posting about the only axis BB-class that didn't suck completely.

>for its tonnage

Idiot qualification to make your choice less laughable.

Also, there ain't no boat like the Show Boat, BB 55. During the Battle of the Eastern Solomons, on August 24-25, 1942, her antiaircraft fire was so heavy that the officers of nearby "Enterprise" asked, "Are you afire?

Can we agree that BB-2, the USS Massachusetts, was the worst battleship ever?

A panel of officials, not engineers, played a large role in the design of the ships and determined what sort of armor and weaponry they would have, without any apparent consideration for the seaworthiness of the resulting crafts.

If you turned both of the giant 13-inch gun turrets to shoot at an enemy on one side of the boat, the weight of the gun barrels caused the entire ship to list so severely to that side that much of the deck and many of the other guns were underwater.

The Massachusetts featured armored sides made of solid steel that was five inches thick. Unfortunately, it turned out the armor was placed too low and did little to protect most of the vessel. The Massachusetts nearly sank three separate times after hitting submerged objects in Florida, New York and Maine.

Perhaps the most critical design error was the decision to forgo a bilge keel, which would have helped stabilize the ships. The reason to do without the keel: there wasn't a dry dock in the United States that was large enough to build such a big ship with a keel, and constructing a suitable dry dock would raise the price too much.

For 26,500 tons 13" is quite powerful, it beats the German 11" and it isn't that much lighter than the British 14", along with superior muzzle velocity.

The Nelson class was 6,000 tons heavier, but despite being 6,000 tons lighter the Dunkerque aren't that outclassed, and Dunkerque had 342mm of penetration with the 330mm / 50 at 23,000 meters. The very flat trajectory of the Dunkerque's guns are a great advantage for penetrating the side armor, and technically at 23,000 meters it can go through the weaker sections (13 inches) of the British ship's side armor, even taking into account the increased armor angle from the fall of shot (around 15 degrees). Meanwhile the Dunkerque's 225mm / 10.3 degrees can protect against the British's ship's guns at around 23,000 meters (fall of shot of British guns is 24.6 degrees, so capable of defeating the British penetration of 261mm with 274mm effective armor). On Strasbourg, with 283 mm @ 10.5 degrees, at 18,000 meters the fall angle of the British guns is 16.5 degrees, so it can defeat the British guns (penetration 310mm at that range). The inward sloping belts of the Dunkerques, combined with the lower muzzle velocity of the British guns, makes their vertical armor very effective relative to their size, while their deck armor is entirely sufficient to protect in any reasonable ranges (after all, the furthest ranged hit in history was ~26,000 meters)

Also Scharnhorst literally only had one thing going for it vis-a-vis the Dunkerque and that was a thicker belt, and given it didn't use all or nothing armor the armor scheme overall was fatally sabotaged. Strasbourg's improvements further obsolete the German ships in comparison.

But for the tonnage is an important qualification, the Dunkerque managed perfection on 26,500 tons while most 35,000 ton battleships were mostly poor designs in contrast. Richelieu is among the best of the lot but doesn't have the perfect dual purpose armament of Dunkerque.

>couldn't hit shit because qc issues in the powder fucking with the trajectory of the main guns
>pugliese was shit
>ineffective AA
yeah nah m8

>still better than anything that krauts&japs fielded

the dunkerques 13 inch guns couldnt penetrate the nelsons belt over pretty much its entire length the weaker sections were weaker specifically because they covered less vital areas, and you also seem to have ignored the fact that the entire belt was sloped

and strasbourg maybe could keep out a 16 inch shell at at 18000 yards, the dunkerque could not

>the Dunkerque managed perfection on 26,500 tons

guns couldnt damage heavier ships, gun accuracy was reportedly appalling - the guns were too close together so caused turbulence/wake problems when firing- and the armor wasnt sufficient to fight heavier ships.

Considering that type of ship...

The Nelson class had 3 triple turrets with 16 inches gun, but the armor was rather poor due to treaties that limited the weight to 35,000

I love battleship threads

*sinks your thread*

In December 1943 after spending a year harassing the Arctic Convoys, the Scharnhorst was cornered by the HMS Duke of York, a Cruiser, three light cruisers and nine Destroyers. Blinded by a snowstorm, Scharnhorst returned the attack. It took twelve hours, 52 salvos and four direct torpedo hits to capsize the Scharnhorst. of the 1,968 men on Scharnhorst, only 36 survived.

>Upon the mission debrief, commander of the taskforce, Admiral Bruce Fraser said: "Gentlemen, the battle against Scharnhorst has ended in victory for us. I hope that if any of you are ever called upon to lead a ship into action against an opponent many times superior, you will command your ship as gallantly as Scharnhorst was commanded today."

;_;

I love the sisters

Gneisenau best girl

I didn't actually see that the British battleship had sloped armor. Unfortunately it is difficult to figure out how effective the guns on a Dunkerque-class ship would be at closer range, since the only figures available are for 0 meters, 23,000 meters, and 27,500 meters. Given the significant increase between 23,000 meters and 27,500 meters (342mm vs. 292mm), and that the velocity showed appreciable gains at closer ranges, I'm still not convinced about the capability of the Dunkerques to be able to penetrate the Nelson's belt at closer ranges.

I did however note the distinction between the Strasbourg and the Dunkerque.

The guns had some problems but these were fixed later on on Richelieu and Jean Bart's equivalent turrets, I'm sure that some improvements could have been made to the accuracy of the Dunkerques. Meanwhile, the armor penetration values of the Dunkerque's 330mm guns were quite good - compare it to say, the German 38cm, and the French 330mm has 342mm of penetration at 23,000 meters compared to the German ship's 350 and 308 at 21,000 and 25,000 meters respectively. That is only marginally lower. It is superior to the British 14 inch and generally not much worse than most other nation's 38cm guns, except of course in deck armor penetration. Unless if the French were doing the testing wrong it is a very capable weapon. The armor on the Dunkerque itself was enough to keep out the German 11 inch guns, and on the Strasbourg it was quit excellent with the improved belt to 283mm with a greater slope, plus better deck armor.

at closer ranges being impossible*

>when you build an state of the art battleships and you use WW1 tier turrets just because they were sitting arround
ayyy

Nothing personal kid.

that's a nice class of ship, it would be a shame if something happen to them...

>On 30 March 1945, B-24 Liberators from the Eighth Air Force attacked Wilhelmshaven harbor; KMS Köln was hit and sank on an even keel. Since her guns remained above water, the ship was used as an artillery battery to defend the city from advancing Allied forces, defending the city from a siege. She served in this capacity until the end of the war in May.

Even in death she served

...

The only reason you would need to compare French and British statistics directly for these vessels is if the allies failed so hard on the continent that the French fleet was in danger of being used against Allied interests, and a very reasonable choice of demands to secure the fleet against this would be inadequately conveyed by one of the command staff with a chip on his shoulder, or something.

Perhaps it was the strongest in the Mediterranean.

Lol It's main armament was 8 13 inch guns and it's secondaries were laughable.. it was inferior in every way to any of its counterparts. I will agree though, she is a very pretty ship.

Nah, Littorio had her beat in terms of armament and protection.

Not to mention she had your guns to a turret, so if a turret was knocked out she has lost half of her main firepower.

Four**

Then they can only enjoy eating Bouillabaisse in Marseille

keep it quiet, don't let the /int/tards take over that board as well

but there's a good naval wargames thread on Veeky Forums some of you lads might be interested in

*blocks your path

*teleports above you. Drops 500 pound bomb down the smoke stack*

Memeperator nikolai

Most aesthetic battleship.

>not Yamato
Fucking Shiplets, when will they learn?

t. Frenchie who's terrified of people finding out that Napoleon was Italian

The "Japanese Compensator" class?

>try stuff in as much aa as possible
>it still throws less flak per minute than a ship of its displacement

Kek

>half of its dispacement

napoleon was french, its only germans/britbongs who are autistc and say he wasn't

The turrets were divided into divided two sections with armor between them. They were essentially two separate turrets joined together.

It was better than any ship close to its tonnage, and arguably not much worse than the British George V-class. Two less guns but the 330mm guns have better belt armor penetration than the British 14 inch.

>Carlo Maria di Buonaparte
Quintessentially French.

The Atlantic Ocean is a big pond

so?
Being French /=/ French ethnicity

>oh but those niggers in marseille aren't really french they just happened to be born here
>napoleon was 100% french!!!!!!!!

t. every frog on this board

it isn't because they're black that they're disliked, its because of what blacks are like

>penis head shaped bow

You what? Dunkek was designed to counter pocket battleship and their 11inch shells.

Actual BBs with 15 inch guns and above would have ripped apart its side or bow.

Also comparing the Scharnhost class to anything is hardly fair, German naval industry had 20 years of hiatus hence why they used outdated armor schemes. And it was a cruiser killer anyway, unless the planned 15 inch upgrade would happen.

France had a 15 year hiatus between 1914 and 1930 where they didn't build any battleships either, the Germans could have just examined the naval results and what was happening abroad like any rational people and come up with all or nothing armor.

BOTA FOGO MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!!

You might want to consult a penisologist.

>It was better than any ship close to its tonnage, and arguably not much worse than the British George V-class. Two less guns but the 330mm guns have better belt armor penetration than the British 14 inch.

still querying the penetration values, and the KGV had far superior protection, better secondaries and AA and better FCS

navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_14-45_mk7.php

navweaps.com/Weapons/WNFR_13-50_m1931.php

I'm also not sure if you can say that the secondaries are that much better, they both had 16 dual purpose guns, both fired shells of similar weight, both had similar muzzle velocity, both experienced problems with the round being excessively heavy, and the elevation of the guns is similar for both (70 for the British, 75 for the French). Traverse speed was marginally better on the French guns at 12 degrees although its elevation speed appears worse. I don't see why the French 130mm guns would be considered worse.

As for protection, of course its natural that the French ship had inferior protection - it was 26,500 tons, not 35,000 tons. The impressive thing about Dunkerque, and even more particularly Strasbourg which has a much better armor suite, is how impressively close they could come in their capabilities to battleships nearly 10,000 tons heavier than them despite being so much smaller.

>The impressive thing about Dunkerque, and even more particularly Strasbourg which has a much better armor suite, is how impressively close they could come in their capabilities to battleships nearly 10,000 tons heavier than them despite being so much smaller.

but they still ended up falling between two stools too expensive and large to be risked easily but too small and weak to mix it up with a proper battleship. strasbourg was better but also much closer in weight, while still being less effective than the heavier ships

as for the difference in the secondaries the KGV had better distribution of its secondary and they fired further for the same RoF, slightly higher in short bursts.

the dunkerque class is typically french, a few bright ideas but ultimately not actually very effective

French battleship for sale. Never sunk, surrendered once.

Strasbourg was 800 tons more, that isn't that much. The Dunkerque's secondaries could manage 10 for each broadside and 12 to the rear, while the KGV's guns could manage 8 to each broadside and 8 to the rear, although admittedly they had much better capacity to fire directly forward at 8 vs 4. I'd still say that the Dunkerque-class is better for arcs of fire. According to wikipedia the French 130mm could manage 20,000 meters of range and the British 133mm 22,000 meters, so I doubt that given that they're naturally designed to engage closer targets that is that consequential. A slightly higher rate of fire for a short period doesn't make much of a difference, especially since the French ship could turn more guns to engage broadside and rear targets (and against air targets I'd expect two of the rear quadruple turrets could fire forwards too).

The Dunkerque-class ships hardly seem like a waste for their size, they're able to beat up on the vast majority of ships on the sea including their intended targets of the German pocket battleships and later on the Scharnhorst-class, and they can still manage to be somewhat competitive against the big battleships.

>tfw your state's BB is ugly

>tfw your state's BB was the BULLDOG OF THE NAVY
>then they pulled it out of museum ship status for ww2 and used it as a barge, then it sank
feels bad man

I fucking love the Dunkerque and Richelieu in ways that are not healthy.

I don't give much of a hoot about their horrible track record; the designs are just beautiful.