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  1.  
    Title kinda says all.

    I love battleships and I thought I should start a thread on them and discuss them.
  2.  

    What era of battleship is your favorite?

  3.  
    Probably more like Era's : )
    The Dreadnought era before those nasty submarines and airplanes arrived to complicate things and that evil London Naval Treaty of 1922.

    WWII (Musashi and Surigao Strait.)

    And the eighties back when the USN still had the Iowa's in service.

    How about you?
  4.  

    Aww, I thought this was about the game (of which I am a master).

    Personally, I like the U.S.S. Enterprise. OK, it’s an aircraft carrier, not a battleship, but still…

  5.  
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fygfFh8k2vU
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nsNlmiLJGIw
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5ATYPrZnSQ&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj-15O-BTDw&feature=related
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okKQeQZeJts

    Some great videos of the Iowa's firing their main guns. : )
  6.  

    I like the ironclads from the Civil War, even though they don’t exactly count as an “era”.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 25th 2010
     

    I don’t know a thing about battleships…

    Well, no, I did do a paper on the U. S. S. Maine and the controversy over what actually happened to it, and I had to learn a little about its set-up to do that. But I really am not familiar with them. Now that I think of it, though, a story in the battleship era—maybe steampunk-ish?—would be really awesome.

    •  
      CommentAuthorClibanarius
    • CommentTimeJun 25th 2010 edited
     
    Ironclads is awesome : )

    @ Swenson. The short version:

    Around 1890 we had the battlewagon (or, pre-dreadnought) this had evolved from the earlier Ironclad. Around 1906 Jackie Fisher was made lord of the RN.

    Fisher decided that the battlewagons were obsolete. And that five to ten inch guns simply weren't enough. So he had HMS Dreadnought commisioned with an oil-burning power plant and twelve inch guns. Now the gun and ship size slowly increased. The Japanese fight the russians with at Tsushima 1908. fast forward to world war I By this time we have super-dreadnoughts with fifteen inch main guns. Then we have Jutland which was the only big battleship clash of the whole war. Now around 1922 the RN plans to build the L3 and G3 class ships which have mounted 20 inch main guns. But along comes that stupid london naval treaty. The americans convert their planned battlecruisers into aircraft carriers, that along with air-power and subs kinda seals the battleships fate. But they were still around and in the 1940's the japanese build Yamoto and Musashi the biggest battleships every made. Both are killed by aircracft. In WWII battleships were used primarily for shore bombardment. The ones that had been refloated after Pearl Harbor were at the last gunfight and the biggest naval battle in history.

    After the war the battleships die off. We bring the iowa's out briefly for Korea and then Vietnam and then during the cold war and desert storm. Now today nobody has a battleship in their fleet.

    *Goes looking for helpful links*

    I've been trying to get a dieselpunk era battleship story to take shape : )

    EDIT: Here's one that should be helpful : )
    http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm
    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeJun 25th 2010
     

    So that’s where the term “dreadnought” came from! I’ve always wondered.

    But are battleships really necessary any more, except for the coolness factor? I’ve never heard of the London Naval Treaty, does it outlaw new battleships or something? If so, why?

    Now that you’ve piqued my interest, you have to answer all my questions!

    •  
      CommentAuthorClibanarius
    • CommentTimeJun 25th 2010 edited
     
    The London naval treaty was inspired by panic basically no one wanted another arms race so they decided to make a treat that would limit ship size and tonnage (Battleships couldn't weigh more than 35,000 tons and no guns larger than 14 inch) at the same time the treaty was designed to keep the japanese and the germans at a disadvantage while being cushy for the RN and USN. Of course everyone pretty much ignored it.

    As for needing them today, supposedly the Iowa's would be nice to have back for Naval Gunfire Support and even today their armor would still provide protection. The problem with that is that battleships and their intended function is largely irrelevant and they're obsolete, upgrading and readying an Iowa would cost over a billion dollars. So basically we need the big guns for Naval Gunfire Support, the rest of the ship. . . Not so much. Saddening huh? It doesn't seem fair that something so awesome should die off so quickly, oh well.