"Ultimate battleship" designs

Scott Kenny said:
Not really.
  1. That's a very small flight deck to work from, it looks even smaller than a Bogue's 440ft flight deck. So maybe you're carrying 24x aircraft.
  2. The turret shape looks like 14" guns, not 16".
  3. The flight deck amidships means that the armored citadel/raft is much bigger than the Iowa or maybe the Montana. Which means that it's very heavy, probably accounting for the extra beam.
  4. It appears to be too wide to travel through the Panama Canal, which is a major operational limitation.
  5. 6x shafts means rather immense fuel consumption.
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Your conclusion is correct in that the ship was useless, but they were 16"/45s, and Gibbs designed the ship to try and sell it to the Soviets, so the Panama Canal limitation doesn't matter as much.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Not really.
  1. That's a very small flight deck to work from, it looks even smaller than a Bogue's 440ft flight deck. So maybe you're carrying 24x aircraft.
  2. The turret shape looks like 14" guns, not 16".
  3. The flight deck amidships means that the armored citadel/raft is much bigger than the Iowa or maybe the Montana. Which means that it's very heavy, probably accounting for the extra beam.
  4. It appears to be too wide to travel through the Panama Canal, which is a major operational limitation.
  5. 6x shafts means rather immense fuel consumption.
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I do not have the raw data at hand but will post later but:
1. It is not small, the entire hull is around 300m long
2. It is 16" turrets just maybe using the older guns Marks 1-3
3. Yes it IS heavy around 60-70.000tons standard displacememt but I don't see the issue here
4. It is true that it is an American design with American equipment but it is offered to the Soviets so the Panama Canal is irrelevant also do you remember the Montana class?
5. How would shaft number translate to fuel consumption? Shaft number correlates to engine power with a max value in this era of 40-50.000shp per shaft.
 
The BBCV version posted was the Gibbs & Cox Design B / Project 1058.1 from 1937
Dimensions: 298,7 (wl) x 306,32 (oa) 39,01 x 10,46 meters
Displacement: 61.840tons (standard), 74.000tons (full load)
Engines: 300.000shp Steam Turbines engines, 6 shafts
Speed: 63km/h (34knots)
Range: 53.700km (29.000nm)
Armour: 330mm Belt, 121mm Deck
Armaments:
4x3 16"/45 (406mm/45) Mark 6 Cannons (likely)
14x2 5"/38 (127mm/38) Mark 12 Guns,
8x4 28mm/75 Mark 1 AA Guns,
12x1 12,7mm/90 M2 Browning AA Guns
36x Aircrafts

There were 2 other BBCV designs offered/developed:
Gibbs & Cox Design A / Project 1058 from 1937
Dimensions: 297,18 (wl) x 304,8 (oa) 38,4 x 10,46 meters
Displacement: 56.000tons (standard), 69.000tons (full load)
Engines: 300.000shp Steam Turbines engines, 6 shafts
Speed: 63km/h (34knots)
Range: 53.700km (29.000nm)
Armour: 330mm Belt, 121mm Deck
Armaments:
4x2 18"/47 (457mm/47) Mark A Cannons (likely)
14x2 5"/38 (127mm/38) Mark 12 Guns,
6x4 28mm/75 Mark 1 AA Guns,
10x1 12,7mm/90 M2 Browning AA Guns
36x Aircrafts

Gibbs & Cox Design C / Project 1058.2 from 1937/38
Dimensions: 249,94 (wl) x 257,55 (oa) 35,96 x 10,16 meters
Displacement: 46.520tons (standard), 58.200tons (full load)
Engines: 200.000shp Steam Turbines engines, 4 shafts
Speed: 57km/h (31knots)
Range: 29.600km (14.400nm)
Armour: 330mm Belt, 121mm Deck
Armaments:
1x4,2x3 16"/45 (406mm/45) Mark 6 Cannons (likely)
10x2 5"/38 (127mm/38) Mark 12 Guns,
8x4 28mm/75 Mark 1 AA Guns,
12x1 12,7mm/90 M2 Browning AA Guns
24x Aircrafts

Note the full BB version the Gibbs & Cox Design D / Project 1058.3 from 1938/39
Dimensions: 249,97 (wl) x 257,55 (oa) 34,59 x 10,16 meters
Displacement: 45.000tons (standard), 53.680tons (full load)
Engines: 200.000shp Steam Turbines engines, 4 shafts
Speed: 57km/h (31knots)
Range: 29.600km (14.400nm)
Armour: 330mm Belt, 127mm Deck
Armaments:
1x4,2x3 16"/45 (406mm/45) Mark 6 Cannons (likely)
10x2 5"/38 (127mm/38) Mark 12 Guns,
4x4 28mm/75 Mark 1 AA Guns,
10x1 12,7mm/90 M2 Browning AA Guns
4x Aircrafts
 
Tzoli said:
The BBCV version posted was the Gibbs & Cox Design B / Project 1058.1 from 1937
Dimensions: 298,7 (wl) x 306,32 (oa) 39,01 x 10,46 meters
Displacement: 61.840tons (standard), 74.000tons (full load)
Engines: 300.000shp Steam Turbines engines, 6 shafts
Speed: 63km/h (34knots)
Range: 53.700km (29.000nm)
Armour: 330mm Belt, 121mm Deck
Armaments:
4x3 16"/45 (406mm/45) Mark 6 Cannons (likely)
14x2 5"/38 (127mm/38) Mark 12 Guns,
8x4 28mm/75 Mark 1 AA Guns,
12x1 12,7mm/90 M2 Browning AA Guns
36x Aircrafts
Click to expand...
Which means it has a ~100m flight deck, even shorter than a Bogue. So I'd really like to see how they planned on stuffing 36x aircraft into that space. 12 on deck plus two hangars?
 
MTI2NTAzNw.jpg

If I only take a rectangular shape for the hanger eg between the 5" twin turrets that means 83x25 meters (The flight deck triangular extensions are adding another 17m aft and 22m forward size for a total length of 122 meters for the flight deck)
The hanger area for one level should be 2.075m^2 plus the aft triangular section's area of around 212m^2
The Bogue had a flight deck of 133,1 x 24,4m and a hanger of 79.6 x 18.9 x 5.3m for an area of 1.504m^2

Even with one hanger level that would be enough for 36 aircrafts (Bogue carried 30)
 
1734293867221.png
Despite being a 1912 japanese project from WW1, could this be considered as a "Super battleship"?
 
Arjen said:
It should be considered hopelessly unrealistic.
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However, it is born out of the same 'exploring the envelope' conclusion that most major navies were arriving at.
  • With natural growth, where will this end?
  • Should we just go straight to the end?
  • Are there any constraints?
  • If we don't want to go to the end then what should we do to stop?
What held back unbridled growth was that you rendered your current stock of ships obsolete. In the case of a Maximum-Battleship, this is what you wanted, a great 'plunge' to a new standard. If anything it showed that your infrastructure was not upto what your building yards could do.

It is interesting that the only ones to really reach for the maximum battleship was the IJN with the Yamato class. Part of their success was that westerners thought that Japanese super-battleships were hopelessly unrealistic.
 
Dorknought said:
However, it is born out of the same 'exploring the envelope' conclusion that most major navies were arriving at.
  • With natural growth, where will this end?
  • Should we just go straight to the end?
  • Are there any constraints?
  • If we don't want to go to the end then what should we do to stop?
What held back unbridled growth was that you rendered your current stock of ships obsolete. In the case of a Maximum-Battleship, this is what you wanted, a great 'plunge' to a new standard. If anything it showed that your infrastructure was not upto what your building yards could do.
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See also the arrival of HMS Dreadnought, and then the US South Carolina class's superfiring turrets getting all those big guns on the ship's centerline. Making all ships designed before them obsolete even before they were launched.

30 years after Dreadnought, the average (American) cruiser was the same displacement as Dreadnought, and the top end battleships were three-and-a-half times the displacement of Dreadnought.

"Ultimate Battleships" are the signs of people looking for the second coming of Dreadnought.

Except the "Ultimate Battleship" was actually the aircraft carrier.



Dorknought said:
It is interesting that the only ones to really reach for the maximum battleship was the IJN with the Yamato class. Part of their success was that westerners thought that Japanese super-battleships were hopelessly unrealistic.
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There's also the Iowa class. I'm not going to consider the Montana class, since it wasn't even started.

But really, the London and Washington Naval Treaties are what got in the way of the pursuit of the Ultimate Battleship (the one with big guns, not the ones with no guns and airplanes on top)
 
To summarise:
1) 500,000 tons displacement
2) 42 knots top speed
3) 50 x 406mm guns in twin turrets as primary armament?
4) countless smaller guns

Together, points 1) and 2) should be enough for this scheme to be recognised as fantasy.
The US Iowa-class battlehips of WW2 needed 212,000 hp to push ~57,000 tons to 33 knots. Pushing 500,000 tons to 42 knots would require milllions and millions of hps.

Where would such a giant be built?
How long would it take to build the ship?
How long would it take for 50 406 mm guns to be produced?
Cost?

An entire battle fleet could be built with that much effort, taking approximately the same time. Ten years?
 
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Arjen said:
To summarise:
1) 500,000 tons displacement
2) 42 knots top speed
3) 50 x 406mm guns in twin turrets as primary armament?
4) countless smaller guns

Together, points 1) and 2) should be enough for this scheme to be recognised as fantasy.
The US Iowa-class battlehips of WW2 needed 212,000 hp to push ~57,000 tons to 33 knots. Pushing 500,000 tons to 42 knots would require milllions and millions of hps.

Where would such a giant be built?
How long would it take to build the ship?
How long would it take for 50 406 mm guns to be produced?
Cost?

An entire battle fleet could be built with that much effort, taking approximately the same time. Ten years?
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As minimum they needed men as for four shipyard.
 
Arjen said:
Where would such a giant be built?
How long would it take to build the ship?
How long would it take for 50 406 mm guns to be produced?
Cost?
Click to expand...
Let's start with "how to build shipyard or drydock big enough to construct the hull of such size and weight." While supertankers of comparable size and displacement were actually build (albeit much later), they were, well, tankers. They were constructed in sections and then welded together. With the battleship, such method would hardly work - not to mention that in 1920s welding wasn't considered reliable enough.
 
Scott Kenny said:
See also the arrival of HMS Dreadnought, and then the US South Carolina class's superfiring turrets getting all those big guns on the ship's centerline. Making all ships designed before them obsolete even before they were launched.

30 years after Dreadnought, the average (American) cruiser was the same displacement as Dreadnought, and the top end battleships were three-and-a-half times the displacement of Dreadnought.

"Ultimate Battleships" are the signs of people looking for the second coming of Dreadnought.
Click to expand...

Dreadnought and South Carolina were incremental changes. Congress deliberately held South Carolina to 16,000tons to stop this rise in tonnage. The projected growth trend over 30 years after Dreadnought is for a ship of about 70,000tons ie Yamato. Maximum battleships are about accelerating the process but for what gain? Your ships have a longer viable life? 10 years after Dreadnought, a QE could probably take on 2 pre-Dreadnoughts or even 2 early Dreadnoughts.

Dilandu said:
It was essentially a theoretical proposal of "upper end of capital ship construction", not exactly a project.
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Its more a discussion piece. Against a 8:8 fleet of 16 30,000ton ships, what if you built 1 ship of 500,000tons? The Kongo had 64,000shp power plant. 16 of these is 1,024,000shp and 64 14" twin turrets. For a navy like Japan, you'll lose the numbers race so what are the merits in building bigger than what everyone else does. Japan habitually went for larger ships than everyone else. This wasn't just a post WNT idea of squeezing in 1 extra gun or torpedo or knot into a design over foreign designs. These enabled Japan to have ships with 25 year life instead of 20 or less.

As it was, the revolution in propulsion meant that a Super-Dreadnought morphed into the Fast Battleship by being 25% bigger but with the same guns and armour layout with the advantages being 5-6 knots extra tactical speed or strategic ability to transit quickly. This is what the WNT stopped. The Iowas were meerly a Fast Battleship version of a Fast battleship - 5-6 knots extra speed but essentially same guns and armour as a South Dakota.
 
Dilandu said:
Let's start with "how to build shipyard or drydock big enough to construct the hull of such size and weight." While supertankers of comparable size and displacement were actually build (albeit much later), they were, well, tankers. They were constructed in sections and then welded together. With the battleship, such method would hardly work - not to mention that in 1920s welding wasn't considered reliable enough.
Click to expand...

I do agree with your point, but I would add that in the 1940s, the Germans realized that their later H-class design studies (which were much smaller than this) could not have been launched in the conventional manner, and would have to be floated out of very large drydocks, and they didn't have such drydocks at the time.

DRW
 
..... and then there's the issue of draft. I don't see any statistics on that, but I would assume that the ship would require very deep port facilities. Did Japan have any outrageously deep water ports? I suspect not.

DRW
 
Dilandu said:
Let's start with "how to build shipyard or drydock big enough to construct the hull of such size and weight." While supertankers of comparable size and displacement were actually build (albeit much later), they were, well, tankers. They were constructed in sections and then welded together. With the battleship, such method would hardly work - not to mention that in 1920s welding wasn't considered reliable enough.
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The issue there isn't actually with the construction techniques per se. There's no reason (save the relatively limited welding technology of the 1920s) you couldn't use modular construction for a battleship, and some reasonably large tankers and ore carriers were constructed in the 'traditional' way. Mostly in British yards that were resisting modern technology.

What makes large battleships so much more difficult to build than an equivalent tonnage tanker is sheer size. A tanker or ore carrier described as 500,000 tonnes can carry that weight of oil. It might have a total displacement of 610,000 tonnes, with a lightship weight of 110,000 tonnes. That means the building berth only needs to accommodate that weight, and the yard only needs to assemble that much steel. And most of it is just empty tanks. 80% of the ship's weight will be pumped in alongside at Ras Tanura or Port Headland or somewhere.

A battleship described as 500,000 tonnes will likely have a lightship weight somewhere in the region of 410,000 tonnes. There's more variability there - is the 500,000 tonnes full load, normal, standard, or something else, and how are those defined? - but broadly speaking you've got about four times more ship on the building ways.

That introduces all sorts of challenges for building and launching a ship. Starting with, can the building ways actually handle the load?
 
As for the modern battleship being a carrier, perhaps the nuclear submarine wears that title but, which version?
 
Another issue with Ultimate Battleships is that Armor Tech had plato around the early nineteen teens, while Gun tech kept moving forward rapidly.

The Colorado 16 inchers could pen damn near any battleship afloat at battle ranges all the way up till the end of WW2 and those guns were tested in 1914. Hell the 14s on the New Mexico would do terrible things to the Yamato at 20k and those didn't see a shell upgrade like the Colorados.

By 1918 you couldn't Armor against the guns being mounted in any meaningful way beside spreading it out into the bulkheads. A hit was likely to pen so you had to ensure any damage got contained and didn't snowball into a deadly hit.
 
Dilandu said:
Probably not, so building it in drydock would be the only possibility.
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Still got the problem of dock bottom loadings. This is a consideration for modern aircraft carriers. A lot of docks which appear dimensionally suitable can't handle the weight.
 
Actually armour tech kept up pretty well with gun/shell tech. Yamato's turret face armour was resistant to anything afloat:

From lwd sources (navweapons, Nathan Okun):
"FINAL COMMENTS:
At about 40,000 yards, the U.S. Navy 16"/50 firing a 16" Mark 8 Mod 6 AP projectile (the later Mod 7 and Mod 8 designs were post-WWII, so I usually do not count them and they were no better ballistically, to my knowledge) will hit at about 45° downward angle and 1607 feet/second (489.8 m/sec). Just as with a point blank hit at 2500 feet/second (762 m/sec) and 45° obliquity, this hit too will barely hole the plate as the projectile is hitting at 0° (normal) obliquity, though not completely penetrate it. Any slight barrel wear will lower the muzzle and striking velocities and no holing will occur at THESE OR ANY OTHER ranges, as mentioned. However, this is so far above any real fighting range (even with radar it is hard to see the target due to the earth's curvature interfering, especially in any kind of imperfect seeing conditions) that I do not even consider it in my computations, while putting the gun barrel up to almost touching the enemy turret is also a pipe dream in real life! Thus, no holing or complete penetrations, ever, though possibly some cracking of the plate and possible jamming of the turret if the crack-off plate piece is dislodged badly enough.

Therefore, these plates are the only warship armor plates that could not be completely penetrated by ANY gun ever put on a warship when installed leaning back at 45°, as they were in the actual turrets!!! Even to completely hole the plate all the way through at that inclination requires a brand new 16"/50 Mark 7 or German 38cm SK C/34 gun at point-blank range firing the latest versions of their respective AP projectiles; it might be cracked at a lower striking velocity, but no hole put entirely through it! AND THEY SAID GUNS HAD COMPLETELY OVERMATCHED ALL ARMOR--*NOT SO*!!!"
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Those were the words of Nathan Okun.
 
Armour only increased in quality by about 10% from 1910 to 1940. Guns reach their limit at about 18", what improves is shell/fuse design or the ability to hit,ie improved optics, fire control computers and radar. Machinery improved about 400% from 1910 to 1940 by more power output and same output but only a quarter of the weight. While the machinery enabled the fast battleship, the force multiplier in gunnery was undreamed of. When West Virginia was complete in the mid-20's no one would predict that in 20 years time, she could hit, with her first salvo, a target at 40,000 yards and in the dark.
 
Tzoli said:
Actually armour tech kept up pretty well with gun/shell tech. Yamato's turret face armour was resistant to anything afloat:

From lwd sources (navweapons, Nathan Okun):

Those were the words of Nathan Okun.
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No it did not.

That utterly useless for all intents and purposes.

The Number of times a Turret face got hit can be literally count with one hand with fingers to spare After Dreadnaught was launch, and only got really high numbers back before the 1890s. The Roof was far more likely to be hit, and that was 10 inches.

The Yamato turrets faces were also over 26 FUCKING INCHES OF STEEL. But they made up less than 1 percent of the ships surface area, so had a very VERY low chance to do anything of use. Serouisly they were what, 10 foot high by bout 40 long? Even combine they came far short of the 400 long by 25 foot (IRC) tall main belt plates.

And none of the ULTIMATE Battleships broke 20 inches on their belts, most stopped around 18 ish which very much was able to be penetrated at combat ranges. Which was less then 24k of range, after that you are looking at about 30 plus second of shell hang time and that is enough for a battleline to dodge. Which they could cause by the 1940s modern FCS could keep tracking and calculating all a target data even if the ship was being driving like it was stolen.
 
Foo Fighter said:
As for the modern battleship being a carrier, perhaps the nuclear submarine wears that title but, which version?
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While the USN was naming the Ohios for states (previously reserved for battleships), I'd argue that the attack subs deserve the title.
 
Dorknought said:
Dreadnought and South Carolina were incremental changes. Congress deliberately held South Carolina to 16,000tons to stop this rise in tonnage. The projected growth trend over 30 years after Dreadnought is for a ship of about 70,000tons ie Yamato. Maximum battleships are about accelerating the process but for what gain? Your ships have a longer viable life? 10 years after Dreadnought, a QE could probably take on 2 pre-Dreadnoughts or even 2 early Dreadnoughts.
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Dreadnought could probably take any 2-4 Pre-dreads. The difference between 4x12" guns and 10x per ship is rather significant.

SoCar identified the ideal weapons arrangement.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Dreadnought could probably take any 2-4 Pre-dreads. The difference between 4x12" guns and 10x per ship is rather significant.
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Erm, no. She could fight one with good chances to win by having significant advantage in long-range combat. Two or more would put the dreadnought in disadvantage due to their combined durability being greater.

Just look at real historical examples of Goeben engaging old Russian battleships on Black Sea. Goeben was a dreadnough-type battlecruiser, Russian ships were pre-dreadnoughts (and not even very strong - being build for Black Sea they were smaller and slower than average pre-dreadnought). In theory, Goeben have all possible advantages: speed to hold the range and uniform main battery to engage on long distances.

But the reality was, that it didn't work. Goeben simply could not hit the leading Russian pre-dreadnought fast enough to disable her before being hit back. And when Goeben started to get hit, things quickly turned sour, because her damage accumulated, while the other Russian battleships weren't damaged yet.

Of course, it was partially due to excellent quality of Russian gunners (even Royal Navy admitted, that lessons of Russo-Japanese war were learned well, and Russian long-range fire in 1910s was superb). But the fact still held; a dreadnought battlecruiser engaged a squadron of pre-dreadnoughts twice, and in both cases were forced to flee.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Dreadnought could probably take any 2-4 Pre-dreads. The difference between 4x12" guns and 10x per ship is rather significant.
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In reality, the underlaying concept of dreadnought wasn't exactly as unquestioned as it often declared to be. The concept of having advantage at long ranges was solid, but the hit probability in 1905-1910 was too low to actually decide the battle at long ranges. Too few hits, and the shells that would hit likely would not penetrate the armor (due to being sloved by distance and hitting the belt at bad angle).

That's why both French and Germans did not consider combat ranges longer than 14-15 km to be worthy of consideration by 1914. Their logic was different (French concerns was mainly about poor armor penetration on long distances, and Germans about poor hit probability in non-perfect visibility conditions), but the conclusion was the same. And this logic was right. Even British did not bother initially to provide their superdreadnoughts with fire control capacity for longer than 16 km, because it was assumed that the longer range fire would only be useful against coastal targets.

The situation only really changed with the further development of automatic fire control calculators by mid-1910s. They made actually possible to achieve hits on such extreme rahges, that shells would plunge right through decks. And cotemporary dreadnoughts have rather thin decks. Sure, the hit probability at 20+ km range was abysmal, but even a few hits could cripple the battleship.
 
Firefinder said:
No it did not.

That utterly useless for all intents and purposes.

The Number of times a Turret face got hit can be literally count with one hand with fingers to spare After Dreadnaught was launch, and only got really high numbers back before the 1890s. The Roof was far more likely to be hit, and that was 10 inches.

The Yamato turrets faces were also over 26 FUCKING INCHES OF STEEL. But they made up less than 1 percent of the ships surface area, so had a very VERY low chance to do anything of use. Serouisly they were what, 10 foot high by bout 40 long? Even combine they came far short of the 400 long by 25 foot (IRC) tall main belt plates.

And none of the ULTIMATE Battleships broke 20 inches on their belts, most stopped around 18 ish which very much was able to be penetrated at combat ranges. Which was less then 24k of range, after that you are looking at about 30 plus second of shell hang time and that is enough for a battleline to dodge. Which they could cause by the 1940s modern FCS could keep tracking and calculating all a target data even if the ship was being driving like it was stolen.
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Yes it is! We are talking about guns vs armour in genersal not gunnery and battleship combat in general!
The proof that the Japanese able to produce such armour plates shows they could could had put it on a ship belt as well.
There are no such thing az ultimate battleship. They evolved incrementally.
As for protection you have to include not just thickness but inclaniation of the plate the shells angle of fall and the relative position of the ship vs the shell trajectory.
 
Tzoli said:
As for protection you have to include not just thickness but inclaniation of the plate the shells angle of fall and the relative position of the ship vs the shell trajectory.
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True, that's the factor that peoples very often forgot when speaking about naval artillery - that shells very rarely hit at optimal angle.
 
Firefinder said:
The Yamato turrets faces were also over 26 FUCKING INCHES OF STEEL. But they made up less than 1 percent of the ships surface area, so had a very VERY low chance to do anything of use. Serouisly they were what, 10 foot high by bout 40 long? Even combine they came far short of the 400 long by 25 foot (IRC) tall main belt plates.
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The reason why they made the turret faces so thick is because they must be inclined BACKWARD for the guns to be able to be elevated. And inclining plate backward means, that it would be put at right angle for any long-range hit (45 degrees angle of fall + 45 degrees angle of plate gave the perfect 90 degrees impact angle - and heavy shell hitting at right angle have helluva lot of penetration). Even worse; since those plates were turret faces, they were the only part of the ship that surely would always be turned toward the enemy.

So the plates were made super-thick because they were weak spots in ship protection - and specifically for those parts nothing short of sheer thickness would work.
 
Firefinder said:
The Yamato turrets faces were also over 26 FUCKING INCHES OF STEEL. But they made up less than 1 percent of the ships surface area, so had a very VERY low chance to do anything of use. Serouisly they were what, 10 foot high by bout 40 long? Even combine they came far short of the 400 long by 25 foot (IRC) tall main belt plates.
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Dilandu said:
The reason why they made the turret faces so thick is because they must be inclined BACKWARD for the guns to be able to be elevated. And inclining plate backward means, that it would be put at right angle for any long-range hit (45 degrees angle of fall + 45 degrees angle of plate gave the perfect 90 degrees impact angle - and heavy shell hitting at right angle have helluva lot of penetration). Even worse; since those plates were turret faces, they were the only part of the ship that surely would always be turned toward the enemy.

So the plates were made super-thick because they were weak spots in ship protection - and specifically for those parts nothing short of sheer thickness would work.
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NavWeaps gives the 16"/50s from the Iowas a 47deg angle of impact at 40,000 yards, and a penetration of 18-20ft of concrete at 0deg obliquity. (The tables lack anything for hitting armor plate square, but the Mk8 AP round will punch 11" or so of armor at 45deg based on the deck and belt armor penetration tables, which is 15" line of sight distance)
 
Dorknought said:
However, it is born out of the same 'exploring the envelope' conclusion that most major navies were arriving at.
  • With natural growth, where will this end?
  • Should we just go straight to the end?
  • Are there any constraints?
  • If we don't want to go to the end then what should we do to stop?
What held back unbridled growth was that you rendered your current stock of ships obsolete. In the case of a Maximum-Battleship, this is what you wanted, a great 'plunge' to a new standard. If anything it showed that your infrastructure was not upto what your building yards could do.

It is interesting that the only ones to really reach for the maximum battleship was the IJN with the Yamato class. Part of their success was that westerners thought that Japanese super-battleships were hopelessly unrealistic.
Click to expand...
Hilariously, even making a model of it caused it to break into pieces...

 

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