On 05Jun2020 0325, xxxxxx@gmail.com wrote:

> I was aboard the Missouri in Pearl a few years back. That was  > something. It feels like there is an entire football pitch between >
the front turret and the tip of the bow. The #1 turret looms over you >
like a building. The bridge has armoured windows and and outer ring >
with some crew, but then there's another 12" of armour and an inner >
area with controls. And aft of that, another heavy wall (maybe > another
12") and then there's what I'd call the ops center or the > planning
area. Bombs at the right place are probably bad news for a > battlewagon
like that, but they are not weakly defended. And the guns > were
supplemented by missiles, phalanx, and so on (cruise missiles > too).
And lots of secondary and AAA installations.
A long, fine, not armoured bow. A single hit there (like the one
Bismarck took from PoW) could've wiped out all that speed advantage
(just as it did for Bismarck). 10,000 tons displacement and a ton of
money for those extra six knots, and less real protection than the
previous class into the bargain, and the PR Iowa and her sisters have
had ever since they were launched has everyone convinced they were the
best battleships the USA (and possibly anyone) ever launched. Like every
battleship ever designed, they were the product of a whole pile of
competing demands, and like every battleship ever designed, they were a
compromise and were weaker than their designers liked in some areas in
order to be strong in others.

--
Rupert Boleyn <xxxxxx@gmail.com>