How Many Battleships Were Sunk Outside Of Harbour Strictly By Carrier Based Aircraft In Wwii?

[Colin]

Question on Quora made me wonder, just how many Battleships were sunk strictly by carrier borne aircraft in WWII? Outside of notable strikes in harbours

 

As a side note, how many by land based aircraft? I can think of POW and Repulse

[Stuart Galbraith]

Roma and Tirpitz for land based. Musashi and Yamato for Carrier air.

 

Im struggling ot think of any others.

[Ssnake]

Hm. Bismarck doesn't count, I suppose?

[Stuart Galbraith]

No, she was only crippled. And im trying to save German sensabilities of it being attacked by biplanes.

 

Ive a nagging feeling Hans Ulrich Rudel claimed to have sunk a battleship, but ive no idea which one if any. All the Soviet ones I can think of were destroyed on the slipway.

[JW Collins]

I think the Soviet Navy had two woefully outdated WWI era battleships which they used during the war. One of them, Marat, was sent to the harbor bottom by Stukas but the Soviets were able to salvage some of the guns from it.

 

German aircraft also sunk two ancient pre-Dreadnoughts that belonged to Greece but I don't know if those were even in fighting condition when they were attacked.

 

I could be wrong but I think one of Japanese Kongo class was sunk by carrier based aircraft.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Well done, I should have remembered Marat, I was always playing with this one in naval strategy games. It was so ugly I felt sorry for it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_battleship_Petropavlovsk_(1911)

 

Yeah, I remember seeing in one book as a kid a Greek Battleship (It had the round lattice tower of US Battleships) that had been sunk by German aircraft.

[Rick]

Roma and Tirpitz for land based. Musashi and Yamato for Carrier air.

 

Im struggling ot think of any others.

By land based planes add IJN Hiei, sunk by Henderson field aircraft, although damage by naval gunfire and carrier planes.

[bojan]

I think the Soviet Navy had two woefully outdated WWI era battleships which they used during the war. One of them, Marat, was sent to the harbor bottom by Stukas but the Soviets were able to salvage some of the guns from it.

...

 

 

​​She was sunk at her moorings on 23 September 1941 by two near-simultaneous hits by 1,000-kilogram (2,200 lb) bombs near the forward superstructure. They caused the explosion of the forward magazine which heaved the turret up, blew the superstructure and forward funnel over to starboard and demolished the forward part of the hull from frames 20 to 57. 326 men were killed and the ship gradually settled to the bottom in 11 meters (36 ft) of water.^[17] Her sinking is commonly credited to the Stuka pilot Oberleutnant Hans-Ulrich Rudel of III./StG 2, but Rudel dropped only one of the two bombs.^[18] The rear part of the ship was later refloated and she was used as a floating battery although all of her 120 mm guns were removed. Initially only the two rearmost turrets were operable, but the second turret was repaired by the autumn of 1942. She fired a total of 1,971 twelve-inch shells during the Siege of Leningrad.^[17] In December 1941 granite slabs 40–60 millimeters (1.6–2.4 in) thick from the nearby harbor walls were laid on her decks to reinforce her deck protection. Another transverse bulkhead was built behind frame 57 and the space between them was filled with concrete to prevent her sinking if the original bulkhead was ruptured.^[19]

She resumed her original name on 31 May 1943. After the war there were several plans to reconstruct her, using the bow of the Frunze, but they were not accepted and were formally cancelled on 29 June 1948. She was renamed Volkhov, after the nearby river, on 28 November 1950 and served as a stationary training ship until stricken on 4 September 1953. The ship was subsequently broken up.^[20]

[Adam_S]

Roma and Tirpitz for land based. Musashi and Yamato for Carrier air.

 

Im struggling ot think of any others.

If you're having Tirpitz on that list, you really should add Gneisenau too.

[Rick]

 

Roma and Tirpitz for land based. Musashi and Yamato for Carrier air.

 

Im struggling ot think of any others.

If you're having Tirpitz on that list, you really should add Gneisenau too.

 

Agree, as part of the original question was "...Outside of notable strikes in harbours" I realize going off target is the rule rather than the exception on this Grate Site, but this time it is really irritating to this ex-sailor.

Back to the original question there were two battleships sunk by carrier aircraft, the Yamato and Mushasi as Sturat has pointed out.

The original side note question is three: Prince of Wales, Hiei, and Roma. Technically, Repulse was a battlecruiser rather than a battleship.

[JasonJ]

The Repulse was a solid 35,000 tons though. Depending on the kind of specific insight the question is seeking, its mentioning might be worthwhile.

[Rick]

The Repulse was a solid 35,000 tons though. Depending on the kind of specific insight the question is seeking, its mentioning might be worthwhile.

Agree with you, but technically correct (or, iow, me being an arse) H.M.S. Repulse was a battlecruiser and the question was battleships. Though, if your on the receiving end of Repulse's gunfire, the technically correct nomenclature would be a trifle academic.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

Roma and Tirpitz for land based. Musashi and Yamato for Carrier air.

 

Im struggling ot think of any others.

If you're having Tirpitz on that list, you really should add Gneisenau too.

 

Hmm, she was not really a Battleship was she? I thought she was classed as a Battlecruiser. And she was in a harbour. Not deprecating it of course.

 

I suppose we can count a fair few others if we can count the Bikini Atoll test....

Edited August 17, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[JasonJ]

 

The Repulse was a solid 35,000 tons though. Depending on the kind of specific insight the question is seeking, its mentioning might be worthwhile.

 

Agree with you, but technically correct (or, iow, me being an arse) H.M.S. Repulse was a battlecruiser and the question was battleships. Though, if your on the receiving end of Repulse's gunfire, the technically correct nomenclature would be a trifle academic.

Yeah, I can understand that. Kind of like how a Stug might get called a tank when its really a support by direct fire whachacatagorizeit IFV.

[JasonJ]

AFV*

[Markus Becker]

Tirpitz doesn't belong on the list. She was in a fjord and also in a state where she could no longer move.

 

Hiei's case is IMO similar to Bismarck's, the different being that she was crippled by surface ships and finished off by aircraft, not the other way round.

[Stuart Galbraith]

But the damage that ensured Tirpitz couldnt move was also aircraft delivered. Soo....

 

A very different matter from being on the high sea though,I fully admit.

[Nobu]

It doesn't seem like there were many opportunities for carrier air to come to grips with enemy battleships on the high seas in Europe.

 

I would include Bismarck on the list of battleships sunk by carrier air.

 

In the Pacific, battleships may not have been targeted as much, for a variety of reasons.

[R011]

 

 

 

 

Roma and Tirpitz for land based. Musashi and Yamato for Carrier air.

 

Im struggling ot think of any others.

If you're having Tirpitz on that list, you really should add Gneisenau too.

Hmm, she was not really a Battleship was she? I thought she was classed as a Battlecruiser. And she was in a harbour. Not deprecating it of course.

 

I suppose we can count a fair few others if we can count the Bikini Atoll test....

The Germans rated the Twins as battleships. The RN called them battle cruisers as they were fast and smaller than contemporary battleships. By the 1930s there was no real difference between a fully-armoured battle cruiser and a fast battleship.

[TheSilentType]

I could be wrong but I think one of Japanese Kongo class was sunk by carrier based aircraft.

That would be Hiei. She had her steering wrecked by gunfire and was then attacked by TBFs from Henderson Field (so they were carrier planes but they weren't carrier based at the time).

 

It appears that it was actually torpedoes from her escorting destroyers that finished her off. Not sure if that one counts for the purposes of OP's question.

[Markus Becker]

But the damage that ensured Tirpitz couldnt move was also aircraft delivered. Soo....

 

Yes, but that damage too was inflicted while she was in port, well in fjord.

[Colin]

The reason I asked is because I keep hearing how the introduction of the CV doomed the Battleship, yet it really seems it was not the CV but land based aircraft that made them vulnerable. The main advantage of CV appears to be the ability to launch surprise attacks on enemy harbours. But that advantage would be lost if the enemy had operating radars and alert warning system (cough* looking at you Pearl Harbour cough*) Plus as AA suites and shipborne radars improved, Japanese CV became limited in the damage they could inflict on non-CV ships as the cost in aircraft would soon deplete their air wings.

[Argus]

The reason I asked is because I keep hearing how the introduction of the CV doomed the Battleship, yet it really seems it was not the CV but land based aircraft that made them vulnerable. The main advantage of CV appears to be the ability to launch surprise attacks on enemy harbours. But that advantage would be lost if the enemy had operating radars and alert warning system (cough* looking at you Pearl Harbour cough*) Plus as AA suites and shipborne radars improved, Japanese CV became limited in the damage they could inflict on non-CV ships as the cost in aircraft would soon deplete their air wings.

 

I think there's an element of cause and effect rolling through the question, but mostly its framing the question in the wrong way.

 

Did Carrier aircraft sink a lot of BB's at sea in WWII? Clearly no. Land based air didn't do that many either, indeed what did sink battleships? I think submarines and mines got most of them, if we're counting across both world wars then magazine explosions in port sank a significant number (2).

 

At the end of the day battleships were never meant to be invincible or unsinkable. Their obsolescence was not driven by an ability to sink them any more than the ATGM made the tank obsolete.

 

The change air power made was it increased ranges to the point the battleship could no longer compeat. If we count aircraft as essentially projectiles, then in the battle between platforms an airfield or carrier has a 100 miles (+) of range when a battleships has 30. The ship just can't get a shot in - if the aircraft have a reasonable chance of sinking the ship.

 

So once we have the great carrier fleets in play, and a battleship needs its own carriers for protection against the enemy's carriers, the battleship becomes a spare wheel and so obsolete.

 

The one exception being in conditions when airpower was impracticable, winter in the Arctic for example.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

But the damage that ensured Tirpitz couldnt move was also aircraft delivered. Soo....

 

Yes, but that damage too was inflicted while she was in port, well in fjord.

 

Fair point. She certainly wasnt moving.

 

 

The reason I asked is because I keep hearing how the introduction of the CV doomed the Battleship, yet it really seems it was not the CV but land based aircraft that made them vulnerable. The main advantage of CV appears to be the ability to launch surprise attacks on enemy harbours. But that advantage would be lost if the enemy had operating radars and alert warning system (cough* looking at you Pearl Harbour cough*) Plus as AA suites and shipborne radars improved, Japanese CV became limited in the damage they could inflict on non-CV ships as the cost in aircraft would soon deplete their air wings.

I was watching a documentary the other day on the loss of the Musashi, and the majority of the Japanese surface fleet was still intact in 1944. Which considering the supremacy of US Carrier air after 1942 is remarkable husbandry on the part of the IJN.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

The reason I asked is because I keep hearing how the introduction of the CV doomed the Battleship, yet it really seems it was not the CV but land based aircraft that made them vulnerable. The main advantage of CV appears to be the ability to launch surprise attacks on enemy harbours. But that advantage would be lost if the enemy had operating radars and alert warning system (cough* looking at you Pearl Harbour cough*) Plus as AA suites and shipborne radars improved, Japanese CV became limited in the damage they could inflict on non-CV ships as the cost in aircraft would soon deplete their air wings.

 

I think there's an element of cause and effect rolling through the question, but mostly its framing the question in the wrong way.

 

Did Carrier aircraft sink a lot of BB's at sea in WWII? Clearly no. Land based air didn't do that many either, indeed what did sink battleships? I think submarines and mines got most of them, if we're counting across both world wars then magazine explosions in port sank a significant number (2).

 

At the end of the day battleships were never meant to be invincible or unsinkable. Their obsolescence was not driven by an ability to sink them any more than the ATGM made the tank obsolete.

 

The change air power made was it increased ranges to the point the battleship could no longer compeat. If we count aircraft as essentially projectiles, then in the battle between platforms an airfield or carrier has a 100 miles (+) of range when a battleships has 30. The ship just can't get a shot in - if the aircraft have a reasonable chance of sinking the ship.

 

So once we have the great carrier fleets in play, and a battleship needs its own carriers for protection against the enemy's carriers, the battleship becomes a spare wheel and so obsolete.

 

The one exception being in conditions when airpower was impracticable, winter in the Arctic for example.

 

Or when Marines are calling for 8 Inch plus support....