BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC: Battleship News

The Navy was gradually getting the better of U-boats in the Atlantic. At the same time the first chill of autumn, bringing intermittent fogs, marked the opening of better weather for submarines. But possibly neither of these things was so important last week as the launching of a vessel which, when completed, will be the only United Nations battleship afloat able, without giving odds, to take on the powerful Nazi Tirpitz, sister of the sunken Bismarck.

The U.S.S. Iowa, first of a class of six, went down the ways at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, the heaviest* hull ever set afloat. When complete, she will weigh about 45,000 tons (52,000 with full load). To launch her 45 tons of grease were needed and she slid down into the water on four sets of ways.

The Iowa, with 10,000 tons of additional protection and speed (designed for 35 knots compared to 27), isa faster, tougher version of the North Carolina type carrying nine 16-inch guns. More than any other U.S. ship, the Iowa is protected against aerial bombs, submarine torpedoes, surface shellfire. Her 200,000-h.p. engines are ten times as powerful as those of the old (1910) Wyoming. Her auxiliary power plant, the one that lights the lights and turns the turrets, churns up enough electricity for a city of 20,000—more horsepower (14,000) than a pre-World War I dreadnought could muster for all purposes.

Six well-placed torpedoes might do for the Iowa, but she is so speedy that a 21-knot submarine (even slower submerged) would be hard put to it to get into firing range or draw a bead on her. A destroyer trying it would likely get sunk. A mine could only sting the Iowa. Her heavy guns match any on land or sea, and with them she could have taken on the whole German battle fleet of Jutland. On the surface, these new ships can take care of themselves.

But in World War II’s new third dimension, the air, the Iowa and ships like her are vulnerable. A heavy bomb can only dent her deck, but a lucky hit down a funnel into the magazine might do for her. High-altitude precision bombing could be crippling if delivered in a pattern so that the Iowa’s speed and maneuverability couldn’t save her. More damaging would be close-in, suicidal plane attack—and even with her announced 20-gun, 5-inch secondary battery, sixteen 1.1-inch anti-aircraft guns and unannounced small-caliber armament, the Iowa alone couldn’t stave it off.

Against concentrated plane attack she must have help from planes, whether carrier-or land-based.

Considering this fact, citizens who read about the 4,500,000 man-days in her making and the 1,100 miles of blueprint paper in her plans might remember torpedo planes, wonder whether it would not have been more practical to finish Passamaquoddy after all. They had all heard that the plane had made the dreadnought an anachronism, that the carrier was king, that the U.S. had already abandoned or postponed five projected 58,000-ton super-super-battleships. Would the Iowa spend the war ignominiously tied to a dock? Almost certainly not.

Battleships like the Iowa make an ideal backbone for a task force because they are able to fight any enemy surface vessels that may be encountered and can keep up with the swift carriers. When fast battleships patrol troop convoys no enemy surface craft dare approach. And if someday the Tirpitz puts out to sea again—as the Bismarck did before her—the Iowa is the only battleship of the United Nations which can attempt to fight her singlehanded* — a pair of the 35,000-ton North Carolinas or South Dakotas would be needed to tackle such a job with any margin of safety.

After a year of fitting, the Iowa will join the fleet. Cost to date: $88,000,000.

Into the Delaware River at Camden, N.J. fortnight ago, without fanfare, slid another noteworthy addition to the U.S. Navy: the aircraft carrier Independence, originally laid down as the 10,000-ton cruiser Amsterdam of the Cleveland class. First of a number of similar conversions, the Independence is something absolutely new in ships—small, fast, armored carrier about one-third the size of the Saratoga, combining some cruiser advantages with plane carrying.

*The Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth and the U.S.S. Lafayette(ex-Normandie) are all rated over 80,000 tons gross, but when launchedthey did not weigh as much as the Iowa does. Actual launching weight ofthe Queen Elizabeth: about 37,000 tons. Unlike warships, cargo andpassenger ships are measured by a formula based on cubic volume, not byweight.

*Only other warship of comparable size: the British battle cruiser Hood (42,000 tons) now at the bottom of the North Atlantic. The U.S. carriers Lexington (at the bottom of the Coral Sea) and Saratoga, now rated at 33,000 tons, were planned as 43,500-ton battle cruisers, later converted. The German battleships Bismarck (also at the bottom of the North Atlantic) and Tirpitz are rated by Jane’s at 35,000 tons but are probably slightly larger. Japan’s Takamato is rated over 40,000 tons.