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Interesting that the North Carolina is claimed to only be armored against 14" guns with a sloped 12" belt when the Iowa's are claimed to be armored against 16" guns with a belt only 0.1 inch thicker. One could say that the armor referenced is the conning tower armor (12.7" on the NC vs 16" on the Iowa), or the turret face armor (16" vs 19") but armored conning towers were being dispensed with by late WWII, and turret face armor rarely ever took a direct hit. Deck armor is only a fraction of an inch difference between the two classes, and barbette thickness and design was exactly the same; therefore the North Carolina class was underrated as far as protection goes and was more than capable of fending off blows from a 16" cannon at ranges not dissimilar to that of the Iowa class. When it comes to torpedo protection, the NC scheme outperformed the later SD and Iowa class battleships. .
The vibration problem suffered by the North Carolina class ships was never fully eliminated. USS Washington was the only U.S. battleship to kill an enemy battleship in single combat in WW2. The fact that she was scrapped is a tragedy.
The USS Washington defeated the IJN Kirishima. The Kirishima was a Kongo class Battlecruiser from 1912-1915. Her armor was upgraded, but that did not make her a Fast Battleship as some warship authors say they were.
No, it is not semantics, the IJN Kirishima was not up-armored well enough to make her as strong and well protected like a Battleship. You can't argue semantics if the proof doesn't fit the argument. I have Jane's Fighting Ships book that classifies her only as a Battlecruiser. I have J.N. Westwood's book Fighting Ships of World War 2 saying the ship is placed into the Battleship category, but he puts at the bottom as a footnote, the ships of the Kongo class can not be considered Battleships.
So I’ve of course never seen the Colorados, but I’ve played Colorado in WOWS (so far my favourite battleship I’ve played). But I’ve played and seen the North Carolina in person. Shes beautiful. To anyone who wants to see the NC, do it. It was an honour to be onboard her deck and it’s great to learn more about her in this video. I can’t wait to see the next video!
@Never_gonna_give_you_up-lol-1 It's really just wargaming spaghetti code that made dual gun turrets bad and also the fact that Colorado can be uptiered and see Iowa running around is bad. (aka matchmaking) Ship itself is fine, grind through it twice, just that matchmaking and your 21kts speed is really bad, luckily we have scenarios these days, perfect to grind colorados
Colorado class's Washington - *get sunk due to budget cut* Me - Don't worry, she will be back. Maryland is kinda lucky among the battleship row. The ship that took less damage but saw all her sistership dying around her
The Enterprise was even more tragic she saw her home get attacked (she was near Pearl harbor when it was attacked) and saw her sister ships die all around her and held the line against the IJN cuz the other carrier kept getting torpedoed.
@@gotanon9659 well the one big tragic of "Grey Ghost" is not her combat but what happened to her after the war. Most decorated aircraft carrier in USN yet sold to scrap in the 50s
23:10 Slight correction here. I19's 6 torpedo spread did hit 3 ships, but the destroyer was in North Carolina's group, not Wasp's. 3 hit Wasp and sank her, 3 missed her but kept going and hit 2 ships that were in Hornet's group. The North Carolina was damaged and had to return to port for repairs, the destroyer O'Brien had her bow hit. She sank a month later in the Pacific trying to make it back to the US for proper repairs.
Wow, the series goes on! And some big time sponsors, congrats on your continued success. See lots of folks finding your channel and diving in, keep up the good work.
From the heavily armored, heavily armed, slow Standard-type battleship to the beginning of the fast battleship in the US Navy. You know, the introduction of the fast battleship blurred the distinction between itself and the battlecruiser, with the former being more armored over the latter while being just as fast. Can't wait for the next 2 episodes: The South Dakota-class and the Iowa-class.
I’ve been on the North Carolina it’s a beautiful ship with a lot of history my personal favorite I wish the Colorado was preserved but the North Carolina and Colorado are my favorite ships to play in world of warships
Great job on these videos! I would love some similar videos on other ship classes and types of WW2, heavy and/or light cruisers would be very interesting!
Battle off Savo Island. It pretty much 1 V 1 tho since Kirishima took South Dakota out of action(not sink) just rendering her unable to perform combat. Only Washington stood alone facing Kirishima
@@treyhelms5282 By that logic, they also got an assist in the guadalcanal battle since kirishima was busy trying to finish off the south dakota and failed to notice washington effectively making it a 2v1
@@JayjayElon South Dakota's electric failure was not due to battle damage, so South Dakota took itself out of the fight. But, even with that failure and essentially blind, her armor held well.
Haha i've only ever visited the Iowa in real life myself, but N.C is on my bucket list. Something about the West Virginia after pearl harbour, what with her looking like a slow, lumbering floating fortress is so oddly cool to me. I'm excited to see your video about the South Dakotas, and hopefully you can touch a little bit on Massachusetts and Jean Bart
Love the video, being from North Carolina, I grew up visiting the Showboat in summers, evening getting the honor of meeting the surviving crew including the year they invited the surviving crew of the I-19 one year to return part of the torpedo that hit the North Carolina. Or thing I remember is that they used to have a nightly light and sound show during the summer that told the story of the North Carolina's history during World War II, unfortunately it had been discontinued years ago. Also, thanks for mentioning the Stryker's Bridge, that was something that I learned from the crew how to tell her apart from her sister.
@@svgproductions72 oh I just got done finishing the video and saw you lol keep up the good work I will wait for number 4 and after this maybe you should do German battleships and battle cruisers
The Colorado's, compared to the earlier standard battleships, really have the look of scaled up cruisers to me. Since I'm a heathen who prefers the smaller, sleeker designs of cruisers and destroyers over the dominating presence of battleships, I'm totally okay with that. The ultimate expression of this, of course, is the West Virginia post rebuild - especially with that trunked funnel, she looks so lean and mean!
OMG! 2 of 3 of my favorite BBs! West Virginia and Washington! PURE HEAVEN! And, pure WWII Battleship on Battleship GUNNERY! Can’t wait for Massachusetts! The 1st and last main battery rounds fired!
Big Mamie, the Bane of Vichy french navy at Casablanca.. against Jean Bart, Milan and Hugo(?). The battleship that firing the first and last shell from American 16' gun.
Can’t wait for the North Dakota class. The USS Massachusetts is my favorite US battleship, and iv visited it a few times. I really enjoy this in depth look into the US battleships. Very fun!
@@svgproductions72 I wonder if the USN had it's way to get all of them built, I wonder if those six ships added to that formation at the Surigao Strait will become overkill for two Japanese Battleships.
Too bad Washington or North Carolina didn't have the chance to encounter Tirpitz during their brief stint in the Atlantic! Would have made for an interesting battle, from an historian point of view of course!
Another great video. Although the Nelsons were for me the overall best, the Colorados were in turn a much better match for the rest of the battle line. The Nagatos were lauded for their speed, but their speed would have been that of the Yamashiros sailing with them.
Not really. Their speed was still a massive asset and they could detach themselves at will. Plus Fuso and the Ise class were still faster than the American standards, with their speeds at about 23-24knots.
Little bit of a random rant but the US and Japan are the only 2 countries that had an only rising gun size. What I mean is most countries started with the 12in gun but the British jumped to the 13.5 and then the 15 then 16 by Rodney but went back down to 14in then 15in with vanguard. But the us and Japan kept increasing to 16 and 18
There's a reason for that: In 1922 the allied countries signed the washington naval treaty which restricted the battleships to 16 inch guns which is why they were equipped on rodney and nelson. However the British proposed an extension of the treaty in 1935 called the London naval treaty which further limited the armament to 14 inches. The US supported the treaty which made the British think that it would go through and ordered 14 inch guns for the king george V battleships, however at the last moment japan pulled out of the treaty rendering it null and void but it was too late since the 14 inch guns has already been ordered. As for the vanguard the British were originally going to build 6 lion class battleships which would have 16 inch guns in 3 triple turrets but they didn't have enough of those and producing it would have taken time, what they did have however were 8 15 inch guns so the decision was made to construct the vanguard with 4 twin turrets 15 inch guns and the lion class battleships were cancelled after ww2 ended. Hope you liked my ted talk
@@rachitkumar1012 cool I knew about the treaty’s but that is just limited the size and number of ships not that it placed a limit on gun size thanks for the new information
23:00 this may be apocryphal, but apparently North Carolina put up such a wall of hate that Enterprise signaled asking "are you on fire?" Due to the constant muzzle flash and smoke coming from the big ship. She's still tied up in her namestake state. I've been to her twice and she's beautifully preserved
Think if the naval treaty never happened what ships we would of have think the planed South Dakatoa had 12 sixteen inch cannons but we would of lost Texas cause it was outdated but Texas could of had a hell of a payload
My two cents if the treaty never happened, the 1920 SoDaks would have been the most powerful until the next iteration probably a few years later. Arms race would have continued unless a treaty stopped it. Older ships like the Wyomings and New Yorks would have been extremely outdated by the mid-20, early 30s and would have been sent for training purposes, scrapped or sold to nations with smaller navies
When the North Carolina's were brought into service the plan had been to retire the older Wyoming and New York classes. But the older ships stayed in service because of the worlds political situation.
Yes, but it was only because they did repeated sea trials in and out of the Hudson River for weeks on end trying to eliminate the shaft vibrations at high speed (caused by a design flaw in the hull form aft) which was eventually rectified by switching the outer screws to 4 blades and the inner screws to 5 blades. (Note: this "design defect" was present in the Iowa class as well, which is why the Iowa s have that arrangement)
@@svgproductions72 The HD is not needed, I miss the simple old Command and C. games but the new games are data hogs. I have a Win 11 HP laptop and while I would like to play a game like it old Commadore 64 grade graphics is fine for any game I would want to play. The VR stuff has just forced me to pull out the old board games. Computers are overrated now and gotten worse since Win 95. With dos I could get a computer to do anything I wanted and normally faster than the ones today. The bloat, spying, AI has killed the utility of a computer. That C64 I had growing up was equal to all the computer power combined needed to put a man on the moon. Today's redirects you to crap you don't want to see instead of the site you enter by name and only after 3 entries will it let you see the site you typed in. I like games of strategy but simple 32 square bitmaps is plenty for any game piece.
It always bother me how underrated the north carolina and south dakota class battleships were. They could be easily on par with or even superior than the Bismarck and King george V battleships yet they get little exposure because the Iowa class stole all the spotlight
I agree, I’m a big SoDak fan, Mass (59) was the first museum battleship I visited, and I’m also a big fan of the KGVs too, but North Carolina is one I’m looking forward to visiting. Making this video made me appreciate them more
Bismarck was a real waste of her displacement. Her protection wasn’t fantastic either and her firepower of 8 x 15” guns was wasted on a 41,000t displacement. Speed was about average for a fast battleship of the time. Considering what the French had with Richelieu class that had the same firepower, better protection and went 2knots faster and was still within the Washington naval treaty limits. The KGV could’ve been similar to the North Carolina’s and South Dakota’s but got hampered by their attempts to abide by the London naval treaty with 14” guns. They were very comparable ships at least in original design to the Carolinas. But were better protected at the expense of being outgunned in calibre and weight by their American counterparts. The real weird one was Vanguard, a big waste of her fantastic hull to have old 15” put on her. Again the UK destroying its naval industry in particular the naval gun development side of it completely backfired. The nation that had most recently built treaty battleships Nelson and Rodney with 16” guns suddenly being incapable and reluctant was/is puzzling. Same with the idea not to go with high pressure boilers and more installed power. Truly if Iowas superior guns/turrets and power plant had been in Vanguards hull it would’ve been the best of all worlds.
@@svgproductions72 if the song was Made like in the 1940s this song was Blaring in Surigao Strait, "Hey IJN ,hear the song of my People! And These 16 inch Cannons"
@@svgproductions72 tbh at first I only liked West Virginia for the Country Roads meme but as I watched Vids of Her History she is now my 2nd Fave Battleship The other is HMS Warspite
I would make the argument that the North Carolina class battleships were the US Navy first battle cruisers in actuality. The evidence that I would give to support this is that they were not armored against their own guns. Due to the escalator clause, the US Navy was allowed to gun the North Carolina class, but the current design specs did not allow for up armoring. The North Carolina class were in fact only armored against 14 inch guns. This is a tall tail sign of a true battle cruiser by having the largest caliber guns currently deployed by its serving Navy, but not being armored against those same guns. Further evidence is with the British Navy renowned class battle cruisers, which mounted 15 inch guns but we’re only armored against 13 inch.
Interestingly the British did the opposite, Hms hood was classified as a battlecruiser but actually had advancements in armour than the preceding queen elizabeth class battleships which has caused some historians to claim that the hood was the first fast battleship in the world
One drawback, the North Carolina class had the speed of a fast battleship, but was not fast enough to hunt down cruisers and overwhelm them with battleship armament. Which was the role of a battlecruiser ever since Jutland proved that they couldn't stand in the line of battle. In any event, the armor of the North Carolina class proved more than sufficient, since the belt armor on the NC class is only 0.1 inches thinner than the Iowa's, and when torpedoes are in play, even superior to the subsequent South Dakota class.
@@rachitkumar1012 HMS Hood's belt tapered from 6 to a maximum of 12 inches, the North Carolina class had a full 12 inch belt with no taper, North Carolina also had nearly twice the deck armor, 4 inch thicker barbette armor and substantially thicker turret armor than HMS Hood. HMS Hood was also fast enough to chase down cruisers, but the North Carolina class was not. If Hood hadn't had that tapered belt she might have withstood the hit from Bismarck that sank her. Make no mistake, HMS Hood was a battlecruiser, and couldn't withstand battleship caliber gunfire in a most unfortunate way. She was a beautiful ship, perhaps even more aesthetically pleasing than the North Carolina class (my personal favorite, and the best looking US battleships ever built)
