And the first of the "Balcanic" girls is finally here (three out of four of the Zara sisters are named after Croatian cities: Zara (currently known as Zadar), Pola (Pula) and Fiume (Rijeka), and the youngest one, Gorizia, after a Slovenian city (Gorica)).
I was kinda looking forward (more like I had the wishful thinking) to see finally a Spanish ship implemented in game (while Spain didn't take an active role in WW2 due to that it was still recovering from the Civil War, actually lent (small and symbolic) support to Germany... Which leads me to think that it would make more sense to see a Spanish ship implemented before an allied one) like Canarias (First of the Canarias Class heavy cruisers and Spanish fleet's flagship), who would have the highest luck hands down (survived all the way to 1977).
Anyway... Enough of my ramblings for now ^^U The addition of a Mediterranian ship girl is always welcome (in my book at the very least), hopefully she'll get plenty of love and attention from fan artists ^^
And the first of the "Balcanic" girls is finally here (three out of four of the Zara sisters are named after Croatian cities: Zara (currently known as Zadar), Pola (Pula) and Fiume (Rijeka), and the youngest one, Gorizia, after a Slovenian city (Gorica)).
I was kinda looking forward (more like I had the wishful thinking) to see finally a Spanish ship implemented in game (while Spain didn't take an active role in WW2 due to that it was still recovering from the Civil War, actually lent (small and symbolic) support to Germany... Which leads me to think that it would make more sense to see a Spanish ship implemented before an allied one) like Canarias (First of the Canarias Class heavy cruisers and Spanish fleet's flagship), who would have the highest luck hands down (survived all the way to 1977).
Anyway... Enough of my ramblings for now ^^U The addition of a Mediterranian ship girl is always welcome (in my book at the very least), hopefully she'll get plenty of love and attention from fan artists ^^
Please accept my apologies for what I'm going to say but you've got no say in what I need or don't need to say, as long as I do it in a civilized manner and without disrespecting anyone/anything (be it other fellow users, the artist or even the content itself) I'm pretty much free to give my two cents whenever I feel the need to so.
And truth to be told I don't feel like I offended anyone with that comment (I gave my opinion about her, I threw in a small informative tidbit about her name origin (which may have been useful to some people... or not) and while my wishful thinking bit can be regarded as an off topic on my behalf, it's not it's like a major crime either).
If my written content proves to be offensive (or way too rule breaking) feel free to report me, if for whatever reason you don't like any of my comments go ahead and down vote them.
Zara: the best armored cruisers until the USN introduced the Des Moines class. Combining the speed of the Trento-class Heavy Cruisers with armour strong enough to protect them against French Heavy Cruisers and modern AA weaponry to boot.
The main problem was the lack of radars (when the Zara-class was designed, Italy hadn't access to radar technology), and the weight saving measures would have made the installation of radar systems difficult anyway.
That detail would bite them in the ass during the Battle of Cape Matapan: three British Battleships (Barham, Valiant, and Warspite) and numerous support ships were able to close in at night and sunk three Italian cruisers (between them, Zara and Fiume) and two destroyers at point-blank range.
... and while my wishful thinking bit can be regarded as an off topic on my behalf, it's not it's like a major crime either).
Ironically, digressions in the comment sections tend to be the best part and what what makes it so great. For all we talk about high quality art, if we are honest, we really aren't some posh critics. I think our assessment of most of the images here either, "cute!" "hot!" "my waifu!" or "not sure if want". I don't think I have ever seen a technical analysis of an artists drawing style on this site ever. As one who only has knowledge of strategic foundations of 20th century warfare, and not the tactical aspect (except for my own country's tactics, US) I enjoyed the comment and look forward to many similar snippets of information in the future.
That being said, I recall T34/38 being somewhat of a history buff too, so maybe his comment was more of an acknowledgement of your information rather than a slight.
Zara: the best armored cruisers until the USN introduced the Des Moines class. Combining the speed of the Trento-class Heavy Cruisers with armour strong enough to protect them against French Heavy Cruisers and modern AA weaponry to boot.
The main problem was the lack of radars (when the Zara-class was designed, Italy hadn't access to radar technology), and the weight saving measures would have made the installation of radar systems difficult anyway.
That detail would bite them in the ass during the Battle of Cape Matapan: three British Battleships (Barham, Valiant, and Warspite) and numerous support ships were able to close in at night and sunk three Italian cruisers (between them, Zara and Fiume) and two destroyers at point-blank range.
Their propulsion system was also vulnerable to a torpedoes and flooding as the machinery spaces where separated by a centreline bulkhead. Zara was hit by one torpedo on the starboard, this resulted in flooding of the starboard boiler space and damage to starboard shaft, the port side boiler space had to be counter-flooded to stabilize the ship from capsizing, this however immobilized it.
As a result all propulsion was lost. These two vulnerabilities contributed to their demise at the Battle of Cape Matapan.
Zara: the best armored cruisers until the USN introduced the Des Moines class.
The Baltimore was as armored, better sub-divided, and properly split machinery provided better underwater protection along with it's larger general size also inferring an improved level of durability generally. Witcha was only marginally less armored the sole difference was .5 inch less deck armor. Another large factor though was that all these ship used face hardened armor which conferred a notable advantage against cruiser scale shells that tended to lack the complex ballistic caps of battleship rounds, Zara is notable in that aside from the USN ship she's the only Heavy cruiser I know of that did this.
At thickness used in cruiser USN face hardened plate was actually the best on the planet though due a scaling effect (which actually made it somewhat worse at battleship thickness), so the USN belts and turret faces were probably a bit better then Zara.
Combining the speed of the Trento-class Heavy Cruisers with armour strong enough to protect them against French Heavy Cruisers and modern AA weaponry to boot.
Zara wasn't fast for a heavy cruiser, and certainly much slower then Trento her 'design speed' was 33.5 knots, but in service she never made more then 32 and 31.5 was closer to reality. While all navies did it to an extent Italian and French in particular forced machinery to utterly unrealsitc outputs during trials producing results that could never be duplicated in operational conditions. As such any claims of high speed on either nations ships must be reduced several knots in most cases in actual operational conditions.
Calling the AA fit "modern" is also a bit of a stretch. Density was good, but various aspect needed to be truly modern were lacking. The 4 inch weapon used wasn't exactly new and could really only be classed as 'serviceable' rather then outstanding in anyway. Part of the reason so many of the guns could be carried was that the mount was a simple pedestal mount with just a thin weather shield on the front. Loading was manual, traverse rate somewhat suspect to track fast moving aircraft, and from what I can tell it lacked remote power control from an effective predictive AA director.
It was no better then the 4 inch weapons the UK ended up bolting to the deck of many of it's ships when it became abundantly clear the lack of heavy AA weapons particularly on destroyers was a huge issue. Because those guns were just bolted on and poorly integrated though they never really excelled and were largely barrage weapons. I doubt the Italian gun fared much better. The fact tiny numbers of obsolescent aircraft repeatedly penetrated fleet scale AA fire to damage Italian ships tends to support that opinion.
Still it must be noted that every other navy was so far behind the US in AA development (particularly heavy dual purpose weapons) by the outbreak of the war that this still resented a pretty effective fit by anyone else standards.
The main problem was the lack of radars (when the Zara-class was designed, Italy hadn't access to radar technology),and the weight saving measures would have made the installation of radar systems difficult anyway.
It wasn't just radar the Italian ships lacked any sort of effective night equipment in the form of widely available illumination rounds, night optics, or effective searchlights. At Matapan the guns on the ships where empty and safed because the very concept of a night action was alien to the Italian thinking.
Weight could have been found for Radar though, removal of a number of the marginal 4 inch weapons would be a very good trade for a simple search set just for a start.
That detail would bite them in the ass during the Battle of Cape Matapan: three British Battleships (Barham, Valiant, and Warspite) and numerous support ships were able to close in at night and sunk three Italian cruisers (between them, Zara and Fiume) and two destroyers at point-blank range.
Radar wasn't needed there, the British ship didn't have radar directed guns merely search sets. They couldn't fire until they themselves acquired visually with night optics and search lights. Thus with proper night optics, lookout procedures, and illumination weaponry the Italian ships could have reasonably sighted the enemy before he fired and at least attempted to escape. One need only look at how the Japanese performed while lacking radar to see that.
The ships had none of that however and so where basically utterly unaware of anything until 15 inch shells where going through the cruisers.
And the first of the "Balcanic" girls is finally here (three out of four of the Zara sisters are named after Croatian cities: Zara (currently known as Zadar), Pola (Pula) and Fiume (Rijeka), and the youngest one, Gorizia, after a Slovenian city (Gorica)).
I was kinda looking forward (more like I had the wishful thinking) to see finally a Spanish ship implemented in game (while Spain didn't take an active role in WW2 due to that it was still recovering from the Civil War, actually lent (small and symbolic) support to Germany...
Italians and Germans are in because they were the main powers of the Axis. Emphasis on main. And they were the ones that the Japanese will remember first and most. Minor allies like Romanians may barely register on the japanese radar.
OTOH, USN finally made it in because, well, they did most of the lifting in the Pacific. Royal Navy are expected next after USN. Then maybe STRAYA (ship Australia became one of the first victims of a kamikaze attack) . Then, I am not too sure about the Dutch (who lost their flagship to the Haguro) or the French, split between Vichy France AND Free French Navy, and some of their ships switched sides which may be amusing to see in KCverse.
Which leads me to think that it would make more sense to see a Spanish ship implemented before an allied one) like Canarias (First of the Canarias Class heavy cruisers and Spanish fleet's flagship), who would have the highest luck hands down (survived all the way to 1977).
Being just a survivor is not just a factor for high luck. Having participated in battles and getting out of there alive are why some DD have crazy luck. Yukikaze survived many battles, Shigure survived the brutal curbstomping of Surigao Strait and Hatsushimo got out without much damage out of Operation Ten-Go. One of the best candidates among gaijin shipgirls to get high luck would be CV USS Enterprise. And arguably those battleships who got hit at Pearl Harbor and got their revenge at Surigao.
The Baltimore was as armored, better sub-divided, and properly split machinery provided better underwater protection along with it's larger general size also inferring an improved level of durability generally. Witcha was only marginally less armored the sole difference was .5 inch less deck armor. Another large factor though was that all these ship used face hardened armor which conferred a notable advantage against cruiser scale shells that tended to lack the complex ballistic caps of battleship rounds, Zara is notable in that aside from the USN ship she's the only Heavy cruiser I know of that did this.
I was surprised by the high quality of Zara's face hardened armor as well, as described by Okun in his article on the subject.
Not really a great ship in any other respect though, especially by wartime standards. Damn good for '31.
It wasn't just radar the Italian ships lacked any sort of effective night equipment in the form of widely available illumination rounds, night optics, or effective searchlights. At Matapan the guns on the ships where empty and safed because the very concept of a night action was alien to the Italian thinking.
Really the Regia Marina regulations allowed to sail in those conditions only during normal night navigation in non-hostile waters, but the very fact that Admiral Iachino sent the entire I Division (two heavy cruisers and four destroyers) to rescue the Pola shows that those were not considered "non-hostile waters", so, to not navigate in ready-to-action condition was a mistake of Admiral Cattaneo (commander of the I Division), that probably underestimated the situation (infact he had first asked Iachino to send only two destroyers to assist the Pola). Even worse, he decided to ignore the regulations also in the part that prescribed to move the capital ships only well behind the screen of the destroyers. Had he simply followed the manual, the destroyers would have come into contact with the battleships (that could have not ignored them, given the risk of being torpedoed) first. Realistically, the Italians would still have lost the Pola, and maybe a couple of destroyers, but the toll would have been much less heavy.
Italians and Germans are in because they were the main powers of the Axis. Emphasis on main. And they were the ones that the Japanese will remember first and most. Minor allies like Romanians may barely register on the japanese radar.
Gee... I know... But let me dream for a while dang it. I know I never see it implemented, but my dreams of seeing a Spanish character not turned into a matador (or undead like Zato-1 and Cervantes) don't hurt anyone... so don't ruin them. x_X
Shebadotfr said: Being just a survivor is not just a factor for high luck. Having participated in battles and getting out of there alive are why some DD have crazy luck. Yukikaze survived many battles, Shigure survived the brutal curbstomping of Surigao Strait and Hatsushimo got out without much damage out of Operation Ten-Go. One of the best candidates among gaijin shipgirls to get high luck would be CV USS Enterprise. And arguably those battleships who got hit at Pearl Harbor and got their revenge at Surigao.
Yeah... Canarias only went through minor things like surviving two wars from beginning to end (or three if we count her minor role during WWII, where she basically searched for survivors from Bismarck), sinking 34 ships during her active service... ...and she only got "killed" by Spanish government's sheer stupidity (who listened to the pleas of several big Spanish cities like Barcelona, Santander, Tenerife or Cádiz (among others) to give her a decent ending by turning her into a museum ship and still said: "F*** it! We're scrapping her") Yeeeeah... Feats that would grant her a luck below 30, aren't they? ¬¬
Italians and Germans are in because they were the main powers of the Axis. Emphasis on main. And they were the ones that the Japanese will remember first and most. Minor allies like Romanians may barely register on the japanese radar.
More than other cause Germans and Italian fought, in an appreciable manner, the same enemies Japan was fighting. Eastern Europe Axis allies fought almost exclusively vs Soviet Union, a coutry Japan was not even at war with until the last weeks of WWII.
Yeah... Canarias only went through minor things like surviving two wars from beginning to end (or three if we count her minor role during WWII, where she basically searched for survivors from Bismarck), sinking 34 ships during her active service... ...and she only got "killed" by Spanish government's sheer stupidity (who listened to the pleas of several big Spanish cities like Barcelona, Santander, Tenerife or Cádiz (among others) to give her a decent ending by turning her into a museum ship and still said: "F*** it! We're scrapping her") Yeeeeah... Feats that would grant her a luck below 30, aren't they? ¬¬
Were the battles where she participated as brutal as those where Yukikaze, Shigure, Ayanami or Hatsushimo had gotten? Luck level may not be higher than Italia, or Nagato and Ushio.
Were the battles where she participated as brutal as those where Yukikaze, Shigure, Ayanami or Hatsushimo had gotten? Luck level may not be higher than Italia, or Nagato and Ushio.
I somehow get the feeling that debating with you is PAINFULLY useless. You know what? I won't even bother anymore... If you're still keen on trampling, disrespecting and disregarding other countries' achievements go ahead, by all means.
Really not. The Baltimore was well armored for a cruiser, but, despite being 2700 tons heavier, her armor was not in the same league of that of the Zara. Baltimore's main belt was 152mm to 76mm over the machinery and 76mm to mere 51mm over the magazines. That means that vital parts of the ship were vulnerable to the 6 inch shells fire of light cruisers (and even to the 5 inch shell of destroyers at less than 10 km). Most of Zara's belt was of 150mm, tapering to a minimum of 100mm only at the ends. The Zara class cruisers were the only real "pocket battleships" of IIWW. The only capable to withstand their own 8 inch shells fire at realistic combat ranges (approximatively from 15 km onwards in the belt, while the armored deck was safe at every realistic range). That gave them a real "safe area" (approximatively from 15 to 21 km,. 21km is the distance at which both the Pola and the Trento hit the Berwick at Cape Spartivento, demonstrating that that range was well within the capabilities of the Italian 203mm guns and sights) where they can inflict serious, and maybe fatal, damages to every treaty heavy cruiser, while remaining relatively safe.
better sub-divided, and properly split machinery provided better underwater protection
Infact it needed only a single aerial torpedo to flood all the better protected, better sub-divided and properly splitted machinery of the Canberra, leaving it dead on the water exactly like the Pola (that had instead only 5 out of 8 boilers flooded, but the steam line to the turbines damaged). While, for a comparison, the light cruiser Muzio Attendolo was capable to steam back to port after being hit by a far heavier 21" torpedo by a British submarine, cause the Muzio Attendolo was hit ahead of the machinery, while both the Pola and the Canberra were hit directly on it. To think to protect the machinery of a IIWW cruiser from a torpedo was wishful thinking at best. There was simply not enough beam to obtain it, and torpedo bulkheads on cruisers were only a waste of space. Even the projected Alaska class was not considerd able to withstand a torpedo attack on the machinery.
It wasn't just radar the Italian ships lacked any sort of effective night equipment in the form of widely available illumination rounds, night optics, or effective searchlights. At Matapan the guns on the ships where empty and safed because the very concept of a night action was alien to the Italian thinking.
At least Cattaneo was not sleeping. At Savo, the captains of the three New Orleans class cruisers sunk were sleeping in their cabins when the shoutern group was already under attack and the flares or gunfire were clearly visible. The crews of the three destroyers that were nominally screening the water were, infact, not ready for action at all, and let the Japanese pass under their nose without spotting them. What all that tells to us about how well prepared US crews were for night actions, and how much the very concept of a night action was familiar to US thinking?
Really the Regia Marina regulations allowed to sail in those conditions only during normal night navigation in non-hostile waters, but the very fact that Admiral Iachino sent the entire I Division (two heavy cruisers and four destroyers) to rescue the Pola shows that those were not considered "non-hostile waters", so, to not navigate in ready-to-action condition was a mistake of Admiral Cattaneo (commander of the I Division), that probably underestimated the situation (infact he had first asked Iachino to send only two destroyers to assist the Pola). Even worse, he decided to ignore the regulations also in the part that prescribed to move the capital ships only well behind the screen of the destroyers. Had he simply followed the manual, the destroyers would have come into contact with the battleships (that could have not ignored them, given the risk of being torpedoed) first. Realistically, the Italians would still have lost the Pola, and maybe a couple of destroyers, but the toll would have been much less heavy.
Actually they just sent the cruisers because there was no way two DD were going to be able to effectively tow a water logged heavy cruiser, and they just didn't have night training PERIOD at that point. The entire concept of a night action was alien to them and they basically assumed the British where the same.
Dogwalker said:
Really not. The Baltimore was well armored for a cruiser, but, despite being 2700 tons heavier, her armor was not in the same league of that of the Zara. Baltimore's main belt was 152mm to 76mm over the machinery and 76mm to mere 51mm over the magazines. That means that vital parts of the ship were vulnerable to the 6 inch shells fire of light cruisers (and even to the 5 inch shell of destroyers at less than 10 km).
You're clearly simply not familiar with US cruiser design. The US stuck to treaties and that meant optimizing weight, but even free of treaties it continued to stick to such principles to maximize what it got on a given hull. One way it did this was to bury it's later treaty cruiser's magazines one deck deeper then foreign designs. This meant they were fully underwater and there was effectively no trajectory a shell could take to reach their side protection that wouldn't involve traveling some distance underwater. The water thus could be considered part of the side protection system and it's massive decelerating effect meant that the magazine belt could be thinner while still being proof against it's own weapons in the desired immunity zone.
The main belt could thin toward the bottom for the same reason, Zara main belt thinned toward the lower edge to about 100mm as well. Also Baltimore's belt was actually effectively 162mm because it was laminated to a 16mm armor grade STS backing.
Barbette and turret protection of US cruisers above the deeply buried magazines was also very heavy, much thicker then almost any foreign design.
Most of Zara's belt was of 150mm, tapering to a minimum of 100mm only at the ends. The Zara class cruisers were the only real "pocket battleships" of IIWW.
Zara's belt had to be thicker, her magazines like basically all non-US cruisers were basically at the waterline, it was entirely possible for a shell to reach them with basically no underwater travel. This is not superiority, but merely a different arguably less efficient approach.
The only capable to withstand their own 8 inch shells fire at realistic combat ranges (approximatively from 15 km onwards in the belt, while the armored deck was safe at every realistic range). That gave them a real "safe area" (approximatively from 15 to 21 km,.
Actually Zara's belt was vulranble to US "super heavy" 8 inch shells at 15km as they would have penetration of probably around 200mm at that range. Her side protection would likely only become effective at around 19km, while her deck protection would become vulnerable at about 22-23. So her actual immune zone against any of the later US cruisers with the 335lb shell would be 19 to 22-23km.
The US ships protection against her guns would be better. I haven't found penetration tables but the more or less contemporary 203mm/55 from the USN firing what was considered to have a well designed AP shell just 5% slower and 5% lighter would have to close to within about 14.5km to start defeating the US cruiser's belts. Even if you tack on say a kilometer or even one and a half to account for the slightly better guns on Zara that's still giving the US ship a belt immune zone starting at about 15.5 to 16km against Zara. Giving similar consideration to the deck Zara would likely need to be about 22-23km away to begin threatening the deck of the US ships, the lower number for the 50mm ships the higher one for the 60 and 65mm ones.
Baltimore and Wichita also had markedly superior protection for their main battery with 203mm faceplates that were about 25% thicker then Zara's 150mm and their Barbettes were about 10mm thicker as well, their roofs were thicker as well. The Brooklyn and Cleveland also had superior turret protection with 170mm face plates, and barbettes of the same 150mm thickness and equivalently thick roofs.
So actually even the lighter US ships immune zone against Zara is considerably wider probably on the order of 16 to 22-23km. What's shooting at you matters, the US ships would be better protected against basically any foe because no enemy had 8 inch AP shells of comparable penetration to their own.
21km is the distance at which both the Pola and the Trento hit the Berwick at Cape Spartivento, demonstrating that that range was well within the capabilities of the Italian 203mm guns and sights) where they can inflict serious, and maybe fatal, damages to every treaty heavy cruiser, while remaining relatively safe.
Actually at that range they would bounce off the last US treaty cruisers and the war era ships as that's within their immune zone. They would also probably fail against the belts of Japanese cruisers besides perhaps the Myoko's though the weak decks and shockingly thin turrets of the latter would be vulranble.
Infact it needed only a single aerial torpedo to flood all the better protected, better sub-divided and properly splitted machinery of the Canberra, leaving it dead on the water exactly like the Pola (that had instead only 5 out of 8 boilers flooded, but the steam line to the turbines damaged).
Well first off actually read up, the hit did not flood all spaces the forward fire rooms and also the main generators remained functional so the ship retained full power and thus use of sensors and weapons, more then could be said of Pola. As for the loss of motive power, well lucky hits happen, but that's doesn't negate the fact that the arrangement of the later (and ironically earlier) US cruisers was superior.
11 large US cruisers were hit in the machinery by torpedoes during the war, two were immobilized by this: Houston and Canberra. The Japanese got lucky that day, they managed to get both ships heeling in turns hitting the bottom more then the side which amplifies damage, furthermore they were using much larger weapons. The land based unit that performed the attack had been equipped with the latest 420kg warheads for their Type 91 torpedoes.
Pola meanwhile had actually slowed substantial from running up on the ship ahead of it when hit by a comparatively puny 175 kg of TNT almost directly on the side amidship. The fact this disabled her is actually a fairly damning indictment, much larger hits (including a number of massive long lance torpedoes) in roughly the same area failed to stop US and other cruisers repeatedly.
This was likely due directly to her machinery design. Zara's looked like this
<== EBBEB =Bow=>
The issue is that mid-ship boiler room actually supplies BOTH engine rooms even during 'split plant' operation so any damage to it was much more likely to spread to both engine rooms, hey guess where the torpedo that hit Pola went? The damage to the turbine lines was probably more or less directly related to the fact the central boiler room was supplying both engine rooms. The fact so many of the boilers were grouped together was hardly a good idea either, it basically assured that a hit anywhere near the middle of the ship was likely to knock out 60% of boilers (exactly as happened), while a more classic arrangement would limit it to 50%.
The fact is the location of the hit and the size of the warhead almost certainly wouldn't have stopped a classically unitized cruiser of other nations, worse hits in basically the same area didn't disable such ships in other navies outside unusual circumstances, or in fact even a number of US (the only navy to widely adopt a unit system on those ships during the war) destroyers!
Zara had redundancy, but the decision to have one boiler room feed both engines and to group the boilers together amidships compromised the system compared to a conventional arrangement. It's also not like this really separated the engine rooms further apart either, it had two instead of one compartment amidships, but the total size of the space wasn't much different and the mild steel bulkhead wouldn't do much to contain damage from a torpedo. I will give it this though, at least it didn't have a longitudinal blockhead in there to help capsize the damn ship via asymmetrical flooding.
Again I'd rate Zara as close, but not quite as good as the Baltimore.
While, for a comparison, the light cruiser Muzio Attendolo was capable to steam back to port after being hit by a far heavier 21" torpedo by a British submarine, cause the Muzio Attendolo was hit ahead of the machinery, while both the Pola and the Canberra were hit directly on it. To think to protect the machinery of a IIWW cruiser from a torpedo was wishful thinking at best.
Man if you're going to try and debate me at least read a coffee table book about cruisers cause you are clearly clueless.
-Atlanta Class USS Juneau was struck by a Type 93 with an 1100 pound warhead in the forward boiler rooms, she sailed away from the action at 18 knots and maintained that with the fleet into the next day. -USS Minneapolis which had her bow blown off back past her forward turret AND took another torpedo hit forward that damaged her boiler rooms and still managed to sail to a nearby harbor -USS Chester hit by a 900 pound charge submarine torpedo amidship, sailed to port -or... well you get the point like I said near enough a dozen US cruisers were hit by torpedoes with larger warheads then anyone else was taking in machinery and weren't halted.
Canberra was the outlier not the rule, well not the rule for US ships at least. Furthermore not a single US cruiser was lost to single torpedo hit during the war.
There was simply not enough beam to obtain it, and torpedo bulkheads on cruisers were only a waste of space.
Beam has nothing to do with it, the protection is sacrificial in nature, but being able to keep moving after a hit and not losing stability is a HUGE fucking deal. NO ship actually denied torpedo damage, that was impossible, they all simply worked to limit the extent. Cruisers had the mass to absorb one or even two heavy torpedoes and survive IF there systems were designed properly, they were well built structurally, and their damage control systems and training were effective.
US cruisers absorbed heavier torpedoes then any other nation and yet actually fared better then almost anyone else. Strongly built ships, unitized machinery, and extensive attention to damage control and stability paid off.
Even the projected Alaska class was not considerd able to withstand a torpedo attack on the machinery.
It would have withstood one or almost certainly two just fine, sheer size would have seen to that. Still, some measure of blistering could have helped limit the extent of damage and might have been worth losing a knot or two of speed.
At least Cattaneo was not sleeping.
Because he was sailing to the rescue of a damaged ship, he was doing it incompetently, but he was still doing it. What he wasn't doing was resting in what was assumed to be safe waters off a fixed objective behind a screen of light units acting as pickets.
At Savo, the captains of the three New Orleans class cruisers sunk were sleeping in their cabins when the shoutern group was already under attack and the flares or gunfire were clearly visible.
Yes it was a surprise attack whats your fucking point? Or are you trying to say that they knew the Japanese were coming and decide to go take naps? Also they weren't sleeping when the attack was clearly underway you twit, there just wasn't time to organize as the Japanese had appeared unexpectedly and swept forward so rapidly. It was a failure of intelligence in estimating how quickly Japan would react, but there was also considerable luck involved for the Japanese.
There's also the fact that, you know, even though it went badly they actually fired back and struck some of the ships engaging them, which is more then can be said of the Italian navy in many actions.
And despite how bad it went they still looked like fucking Nelson himself compared to the Pola crew acting like fucking frat boys getting drunk as shit and their 'rescuers' ignoring doctrine and sailing ahead of their screen into an area enemy surfaces were known to have operating only hours before in and then sailing to within 3500 meters of fucking battleships (they sailed into the British, the British weren't out actively looking for the rescue force that they didn't even know existed) and then not even getting a fucking shot off before being annihilated.
The crews of the three destroyers that were nominally screening the water were, infact, not ready for action at all, and let the Japanese pass under their nose without spotting them.
Horseshit, they weren't at action stations because there was no confirmed immediate danger, but they were on alert and specifically patrolling. The Japanese slipped past as much by luck as any particular skill.
What all that tells to us about how well prepared US crews were for night actions, and how much the very concept of a night action was familiar to US thinking?
That they got surprised once, and though not ever battle went well after that it didn't really happen again, all subsequent battles were pitched with both sides engaging. US night combat training wasn't as good as it could or perhaps should have been, but it at least EXISTED, they trained for it pre-war, they sank numerous enemy ships in night battles between 1942-43, and even at Savo at least they fired back and scored some hits which is more then can be said for Italy from about 1939 to 1941.
And the first of the "Balcanic" girls is finally here (three out of four of the Zara sisters are named after Croatian cities: Zara (currently known as Zadar), Pola (Pula) and Fiume (Rijeka), and the youngest one, Gorizia, after a Slovenian city (Gorica)).
Gorizia is an Italian city, not a Slovenian one. Zara, Pola and Fiume were Italian as well, back in the time.
