25 Battleships, Aircraft Carriers, Submarines, And Aircraft That Made History

[rangerrebew]

November 16, 2019 

25 Battleships, Aircraft Carriers, Submarines, And Aircraft That Made History

An important list.
by James Holmes Robert Farley Follow drfarls on Twitter L

Key point: These weapons of war were the best in their day.
 

Ranking the greatest battleships of all time is a tad easier than ranking naval battles. Both involve comparing apples with oranges. But at least taking the measure of individual men-of-war involves comparing one apple with one orange. That's a compact endeavor relative to sorting through history to discern how seesaw interactions shaped the destinies of peoples and civilizations.

Still, we need some standard for distinguishing between battlewagons. What makes a ship great? It makes sense, first of all, to exclude any ship before the reign of Henry VIII. There was no line-of-battle ship in the modern sense before England's "great sea-king" founded the sail-driven Royal Navy in the 16th century. Galley warfare was quite a different affair from lining up capital ships and pounding away with naval gunnery.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/25-battleships-aircraft-carriers-submarines-and-aircraft-made-history-96916

[PeteS in CA]

An interesting battleships list, looking at raw power (guns and armor), influence on events, and place in time.

Bismarck - while not markedly more potent - if at all - than the much older RN Queen Elizabeth class or USN New Mexico or Tennessee classes, Bismarck and his class mate Tirpitz had a huge effect in how the RN deployed its forces.

Yamato - Biggest ever, but a fuel guzzler and out-ranged by aircraft. A mighty ship if a one-on-one duel ever happened, but seldom used in real life.

Missouri - Interesting for comparisons to Yamato and Musashi, but like the Yamatos, the Iowa class never fought in a surface battle. However, due to how the war was faring, the Iowas provided vital cover for USN carrier forces and shore bombardment. Iowa class BBs also participated in Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War.

Mikasa - English-built, not particularly remarkable among pre-Dreadnought battleships, but. But the Battle of Tsushima Straight. Combining better personnel and tactics the Japanese Navy won handily a battle almost no one outside of Japan imagined they could. Ordinary ship, huge place in history. The Battle of Tsushima Straight also had a big influence on naval design. It showed that battles would be fought at longer ranges than previously and the difficulty of distinguishing shell splashes of multiple calibers of guns. This pushed battle ship design toward ...

Victory - Trafalgar. Any questions? Trafalgar established British naval superiority for a century or more, and was a major defeat for Napoleon.

There is a battleship I think is missing from the list, yet I would have a hard time arguing against any of the 5 listed ships. Before 1906, battleships followed the 18th and 19th Century practice of multiple caliber guns for multiple purposes in battle. A typical battleship of that era had: four 12" main guns, two in a fore turret, and two in an aft turret; a number of 8" or 9" (it varied by country and class) guns as a secondary battery along the sides of the ship (ignore some USN abominations); a number of 6" or 7" (it varied by country and class) guns as a tertiary battery along the sides of the ship. The Battle of Tsushima Straight showed that secondaries and tertiaries often would be unused due to their limited range, and closer in they could confuse fire control. This led to classes of battleships that carried 8-12 main guns (initially 12") and a smaller number of secondaries to use against smaller, faster craft that might get close in. The first such battleship, which gives a name to battleships of this design philosophy was HMS Dreadnought. If a 6th ship could be added to this Top 5 list, it would be HMS Dreadnought.

There were also ships that were bridged between wooden ships-of-the-line (like HMS Victory) and pre-dreadnoughts (like the RN's Royal Sovereign class). An example of this would be HMS Warrior, which to some degree resembled a ship-of-the-line, but had an iron hull.

[PeteS in CA]

USS Midway - The Midway class was to be the next USN carrier class after the Essex clas, but WW2 ended befor eclass leader Midway could participate. As a consequence only 3 were built. USS Midway was the first USN carrier that was able to span from propellor-driven planes to modern jets. Some previous Essex class CVs were adequate into the mid-late 60s, but the Midways were able to serve into the 1990s.

USS Franklin - Member of the mighty Essex class that overwhelmed the Japanese Navy like a Tsunami. Franklin survived a devastating Kamikaze hit, http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/carriers/cv13.htm

Akagi - Akagi was being built as a battlecruiser, but the London Naval Treaty ended the building of new battleships and battle cruisers (because they start wars, doncha know). The treaty permitted converting some battle cruisers and battleships that were under construction to aircraft carriers. So Akagi and sister Amagi were converted ... well, not Amagi, as her hull was extensively damaged by an earthquake, so partly-built battleship Kaga was converted instead. The big points of significance of Akagi are that she and sister Kaga were where IJN carrier doctrine, from facilities layout to plane handling to squadron organization and fight doctrine were developed, and Akagi was one of six IJN carriers that carried out the Pearl Harbor attack.

HMS Hermes - The USN had the Midway, which served in the Gulf War, and the RN had the Hermes, which took the RN into the jet age and served in the Falklands War. More on this point amd more broadly below.

USS Enterprise (CV-6) - The Yorktown class (Yorktown, Enterprise, and Hornet) was the USN's first fully successful class of purpose-built fleet carriers. Yorktown fought at Coral Sea and Midway. Hornet launched the Doolittle Raid and then fought at Midway and in the early Solomons Campaign. The oft-wounded USS Enterprise fought just about everywhere in the Pacific, including surviving a devastating Kamikaze hit. Near perfect for WW2 in the Pacific, she was not adaptable to the jet age.

From my perspective, the history of aircraft carriers is too short with too many equally significant parallel paths to suit a Top 5 list format. My Top-5-ish approach would be thus:

Experimental carriers - RN HMS Argus, USN USS Langley, IJN Hosho. These were the beginning of the development of the aircraft carrier concept. How could one say that any one of these was more significant?

Treaty-forced conversions - RN Courageous class (converted from battle cruiser), USN Lexington class (converted from battle cruiser); IJN Akagi and Kaga, French Navy Bearn (converted from battleship). These were the ships on which their respective navies took a proven concept into formidable fighting ships.

First fully successful purpose-built fleet carriers - RN HMS Ark Royal, USN Yorktown class, IJN Shokaku class. These became the backbones of their respective navies' carrier fleets in WW2. Enterprise, Shokaku, and Zuikaku fought in most of the whole war in the Pacific.

Early jet age carriers - RN Audacious and Centaur classes, USN Essex, Midway, and Forrestal classes, French navy Clemenceau class. Going from propellors to jets and helicopters. Some Essex class carriers were tasked to recover astronauts and capsules for NASA; some fought in the Vietnam War. HMS Hermes, as noted above, fought in the Falklands War, and USS Midway in the Gulf War.

USS Enterprise, CVN-65 - the USN's first nuclear powered carrier and forebear of the Nimitz class. Her years of active service spanned from 1961 into 2012, and she was decommissioned in 2017.