German battleships. Top most powerful battleships of the second world war

For a certain time, they were significantly inferior in technical part and armament to low-speed battleships. But already in the 20th century, countries wishing to strengthen their fleets began to create battleships that would have no equal in terms of firepower. But not all states could afford to build such a ship. Superships were of great value. Consider the world's largest battleship, its features and other important details.

Richelieu and Bismarck

The French ship called "Richelieu" boasts a displacement of 47 thousand tons. The length of the vessel is about 247 meters. The main purpose of the ship was to contain the Italian fleet, but this battleship never saw active hostilities. The only exception is the 1940 Senegalese operation. In 1968 "Richelieu", named after the French cardinal, was scrapped. One of the main weapons was installed in Brest as a monument.

The Bismarck is one of the legendary ships of the German navy. The length of the vessel is 251 meters, and the displacement is 51 thousand tons. The battleship was launched in 1938, with Adolf Hitler himself present. In 1941, the ship was sunk by the forces resulting in the death of many people. But this is far from the largest battleship in the world, so let's move on.

German "Tirpitz" and Japanese "Yamato"

Of course, "Tirpitz" is not the largest battleship in the world, but during the war it had outstanding technical characteristics. However, after the destruction of the Bismarck, he never took an active part in the hostilities. It was launched in 1939, and already in the 44th it was destroyed by torpedo bombers.

But the Japanese Yamato is the world's largest battleship, which was sunk as a result of combat battles. The Japanese treated this ship very frugally, so it did not take part in hostilities until 1944, although such an opportunity fell out more than once. It was launched in 1941. The length of the vessel is 263 meters. There were 2.5 thousand crew members on board. In April 1945, as a result of an attack from the American fleet, he received 23 direct hits from torpedoes. As a result, the bow compartment exploded, and the ship sank to the bottom. According to rough estimates, more than 3,000 people died and only 268 managed to escape in a shipwreck.

Another tragic story

Japanese battleships were unlucky on the battlefield during World War II. It is difficult to name the exact reason. Was it in the technical part or the fault of the entire command, it will remain a mystery. Nevertheless, after Yamato, another giant was built - Musashi. It was 263 meters long with a displacement of 72 thousand tons. First launched in 1942. But this ship was also awaiting the tragic fate of its predecessor. The first was successful, one might say. After the attack of the American submarine "Musashi" received a serious hole in the bow, but safely left the battlefield. But after some time in the Sibuyan Sea, the ship was attacked by American aircraft. The main blow fell precisely on this battleship.

As a result of 30 direct hits from bombs, the ship sank. Then more than 1000 people of the crew and the captain of the ship were killed. In 2015, Musashi was discovered by an American millionaire at a depth of 1.5 kilometers.

Who Owned Ocean Domination?

Here we can definitely say - America. The fact is that the largest battleship in the world was built there. Moreover, during the war the USA had more than 10 combat-ready super-ships, while Germany had only about 5. The USSR had none at all. Although today it is known about the project called "Soviet Union". It was developed during the war, and the ship was already 20% built, but no more.

The largest battleship of the war in the world, which was decommissioned last of all - "Wisconsin". He went to anchorage in the port of Norflock in 2006, where it is today as a museum piece. This giant was 270 meters long with a displacement of 55 thousand tons. During the war, he took an active part in various special operations and accompanied aircraft carrier groups. The last time it was involved in the fighting in the Persian Gulf.

Top 3 giants from America

"Iowa" - American battleship 270 meters long with a displacement of 58 thousand tons. This is one of the most prominent US ships, even if not the largest ship in the world. was first launched in 1943 and took part in many naval battles. It was actively used as an escort for aircraft carriers, and was also used to support the ground forces. In 2012 he was sent to Los Angeles, where he is now as a museum.

But almost every American knows about the "black dragon". "New Jersey" was nicknamed so for the fact that it was terrifying by its mere presence on the battlefield. It is the world's largest battleship in history, which took part in the Vietnam War. It was launched in 1943 and was similar in type to the Iowa ship. The length of the vessel was 270.5 meters. This is a true veteran of naval battles, who was sent to the port of Camden in 1991. There he is now and serves as a landmark.

The world's largest battleship of World War II

The honorable first place is occupied by the ship "Missouri". She was not only the largest representative (271 meters in length), but was also the last American battleship. This vessel is known mostly due to the fact that it was on board that the pact of surrender of Japan was signed. But at the same time "Missouri" took an active part in hostilities. It was launched from the shipyard back in 1944 and was used to escort aircraft carrier groups and support various special operations. His last shot was fired in the Persian Gulf. In 1992, it was decommissioned from the US reserves and went to the parking lot at Pearl Harbor.

This is one of the most famous ships in America and the whole world. More than one documentary has been made about him. By the way, millions of dollars are spent annually in the United States to maintain the operating condition of already decommissioned battleships, because this is a historical value.

Hopes did not come true

Even the world's largest battleship of war did not live up to the hopes placed on it. A striking example of this is the Japanese giants, which were destroyed by American bombers without having time to respond with the main caliber. All this indicated low efficiency against aviation.

Nevertheless, the firepower of the battleships was simply amazing. For example, 460-mm artillery pieces weighing almost 3 tons each were installed on the Yamato. In total, there were about 9 such guns on board. True, the designers introduced a ban on a simultaneous salvo, as this would inevitably lead to mechanical damage to the ship.

Protection was also an important aspect. Armor plates of various thicknesses protected the most important components and assemblies of the ship and had to ensure its buoyancy in any situation. The main gun had a 630 mm mask. It would not have been pierced by any weapon in the world, even when shooting at close range. But still, this did not save the battleship from death.

He was attacked by American attack aircraft for almost the whole day. The total number of aircraft that took part in the special operation reached 150 machines. After the first breakdowns in the hull, the situation was not yet critical, when 5 more torpedoes hit, a roll of 15 degrees appeared, it was reduced to 5 degrees using anti-flooding. But already at this time there were huge losses of personnel. When the roll reached 60 degrees, a monstrous explosion thundered. These were stocks of the main caliber, approximately 500 tons of explosives. So the world's largest battleship, the photo of which you can see in this article, was sunk.

Let's sum up

Today, any ship, even the world's largest battleship, has a significant lag from a technical point of view. The guns do not allow effective aimed fire due to insufficient vertical and horizontal guidance angles. The huge mass does not allow to gain high speed. All this, along with their large size, makes battleships easy prey for aviation, especially if there is no air support and destroyer cover.

The fate of these steel monsters, conceived as a thunderstorm of the oceans and seas, has developed in different ways. The military leadership of all the belligerent countries had high hopes for them. However, it soon became clear that size, in general, does not matter. Battleships gradually gave way to aircraft carriers.

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1. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the USSR had three battleships of the "Sevastopol" type: "Paris Commune", "October Revolution" and "Marat". They were laid down in June 1909 at the shipyards of St. Petersburg and launched in June-September 1911 and were called then, of course, differently: "Sevastopol", "Gangut" and "Petropavlovsk". "Marat" and "October Revolution" were used in the coastal defense system of Leningrad, and the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet "Paris Commune" defended Sevastopol in 1942. All three battleships were removed from service only after the war.

2. The history of the German battleships was sad. "Bismarck" was sunk by a British squadron on May 27, 1941 in the very first military campaign. The Tirpitz, sent into Norwegian waters in 1942 to hunt Arctic convoys, was destroyed by five-ton bombs in the parking lot in a British air raid in November 1944. On the night of February 27, 1942, in the North Sea, a 500-kilogram British aerial bomb pierced the upper deck of the battleship Gneisenau; it has never been restored. The Scharnhorst was sent to the bottom north of Norway by the battleship Duke of York and the cruiser Jamaica on December 26, 1943.

3. The French battleship "Richelieu" in 1943-1944, together with the forces of the British fleet, participated in the liberation of Norway. The obsolete ship of the line was scrapped in 1968.

4. Nearly two dozen battleships of the types "King George V", "Queen Elizabeth", "Nelson" and "Rivenge" of the Royal Navy of Great Britain fought with enemies from the Channel to the Mediterranean and the coast of Africa.

5. Four American battleships were sunk and four more seriously damaged in the attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor. The rest of the American battleships fought as part of the US Pacific Fleet. On board the battleship Missouri, Japan's surrender act was signed on September 2, 1945. The Missouri proved to be a long-liver: its last salvo was fired in 1991 in the Persian Gulf. The ship is featured in the old film Under Siege with Steven Seagal. True, the shooting was carried out on the decommissioned battleship Alabama.

6. The Japanese battleships Yamato and Musashi were the largest ships of this type in the world. Imperial Japan very much hoped that, thanks to the ships of the line, it would be possible to seize supremacy at sea. However, the very first military campaign "Yamato" in the Philippine Sea was extremely unsuccessful: on June 19, 1944, he fired at his own aircraft. On October 24, 1944, Musashi was killed by bombs and torpedoes from American aircraft in the Sibuyan Sea. On April 7, 1945, as a result of a powerful attack by carrier-based aircraft, the Yamato went to the bottom, taking with it more than three thousand crew members.

7. Italy has never been a maritime power. The three battleships "Littorio", "Vittorio Veneto" and "Roma" have not distinguished themselves with major successes. "Vittorio Veneto" and "Littorio" after the war went to the Allies and were dismantled for scrap, and "Roma" on September 9, 1943, the day after Italy's surrender, was sunk by German aircraft.

The defeat in the First World War, it would seem, finally eliminated Germany from the contenders for naval supremacy. According to the Treaty of Versailles, the Germans were allowed to have ships with a displacement of up to 10 thousand tons with guns of no more than 11 inches in caliber. Therefore, they had to say goodbye to the hope of retaining even their very first dreadnoughts and be content with only hopelessly outdated battleships such as Deutschland and Braunschweig. When the opportunity arose to replace the latter with ships of new designs (and this was allowed to be done no earlier than 20 years after they were in service), it was these "Versailles" restrictions that led to the appearance of "capital" ships of the "Deutschland" type, unusual in all respects.

When creating it, the Germans proceeded from the fact that the new ship would primarily be used on enemy communications as a raider. At the same time, the successful actions of the Emden and Konigsberg against British shipping in 1914 clearly showed that the weak armament of the light cruisers leaves them no chance when a more serious enemy appears. Therefore, the Deutschland must be stronger than any enemy heavy cruiser and at the same time faster than any battleship. This idea, frankly speaking, is not new, but attempts to implement it earlier rarely led to the desired result. And only the Germans finally managed to embody it in metal as close to the idea as possible. "Deutschlands" with a very limited displacement received powerful weapons, decent (by cruising standards) protection and a huge cruising range. In the German navy, the new ships were officially classified as battleships (panzerschiffe), in fact they were heavy cruisers, but due to the overly powerful main battery artillery they remained in the history of world shipbuilding as "pocket battleships".

Indeed, Deutschland's armament - two three-gun 11-inch turrets and 8 six-inch turrets as medium caliber - looked quite "battleship". The new 283-mm cannon (the Germans officially called it "28-cm", and therefore in the literature it is often listed as 280-mm) - with a barrel length of 52 caliber and an elevation angle of 40, it could shoot 300-kg shells at a distance of 42.5 km. "Pushing" such artillery into cruising dimensions was made possible, firstly, by the all-round lightening of the hull due to the widespread introduction of electric welding and, secondly, by the use of fundamentally new engines - four twin diesel units with a hydraulic transmission. As a result, there was room in the project for an armor belt 60-80 mm thick, and for an anti-torpedo protection about 4.5 m wide (together with boules), ending with a 40-mm longitudinal bulkhead.

The commissioning of the lead "pocket battleship" coincided with Hitler's coming to power and resulted in a noisy propaganda campaign designed to convince the layman that the revival of the German fleet began with the creation of "the world's best" ships. In reality, these statements were far from the truth. For all its originality "Deutschland" and the "Admiral Scheer" and "Admiral Graf Spee", which followed, were far from superior to all "Washington" cruisers in terms of armor protection, and were inferior in speed to all by an average of 4-5 knots. The seaworthiness of the "pocket battleships" at first turned out to be unimportant, which is why they had to urgently alter the bow of the hull. To top it all, it should be noted that their real standard displacement exceeded the declared (10 thousand tons) by 17-25%, and the total on the "Admiral Graf Spee" generally reached 16020 tons!

The obvious limitation of the capabilities of "pocket battleships" in the light of the new naval doctrine declared by Hitler forced to abandon the construction of three more ships of the same type in favor of full-fledged battleships. In June 1935, a treaty was concluded in London that allowed Germany to have a fleet that was 35% of the British. Having won a diplomatic victory, the Germans could now build battleships quite legally.

The creation of the ships went under the personal control of the Fuhrer. It is he who is considered to be the author of the new role assigned to the armored giants of the Kriegsmarine in the impending war. The fact is that, being unable to compete with the British fleet in a general battle, the Nazis intended to use their battleships as ocean raiders. It was in the actions of the mighty ships against transport shipping that Hitler saw an opportunity to bring the "mistress of the seas" to her knees.

In terms of their parameters, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are often (and quite rightly) called battlecruisers. However, their continuity with their outstanding ancestors - "Derflinger" and "Mackensen" - is very conditional. The Scharnhorst project is largely derived from the "pocket battleships". The only thing that the designers borrowed from the Kaiser's battlecruisers was the booking scheme. For the rest, the Scharnhorst is just a normal-sized Deutschland with a third 283-mm turret and a steam turbine unit.

The Scharnhorst's armor protection scheme was old-fashioned, but at the same time very powerful. A vertical belt made of 350-mm cemented armor was attached to the outside and could withstand 1016-kg 406-mm shells at ranges over 11 km. Above was an additional 45mm belt. There were two armored decks: 50-mm upper and 80-mm (95-mm above the cellars) lower with 105-mm bevels. The total weight of the armor has reached a record value - 44% of the normal displacement! The anti-torpedo protection had an average width of 5.4 m on each side and was separated from the hull by an inclined 45-mm bulkhead.

The 283-mm guns of the SKC-34 model were slightly improved compared to the previous SKC-28 model: the barrel length was increased to 54.5 caliber, which allowed the heavier 330-kg projectile to provide the same firing range of 42.5 km. True, Hitler was unhappy: he considered the German ships of the period of the First World War clearly under-armed and demanded that 380-mm guns be installed on the Scharnhorst. Only the reluctance to delay the entry of battleships into service for a long time (and new weapons would delay their readiness for at least a year) forced him to compromise, postponing the rearmament of ships at the time of their future upgrades.

The mixed placement of medium, artillery in two-gun turrets and deck shield mountings looks very strange. But this fact can be explained very easily: the latter have already been ordered for the failed 4th and 5th "pocket battleships", and the Scharnhorst designers simply "disposed of" them.

Already during the construction of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, it became clear that the attempts of the international community to limit the naval arms race had failed. The leading naval powers immediately began designing super-battleships, and the Germans, naturally, did not stand aside.

In June 1936, the Bismarck and Tirpitz, the largest warships ever built in Germany, were laid down at the shipyards of Hamburg and Wilhelmshaven. Although it was officially announced that the displacement of the new battleships was 35 thousand tons, in reality this value was exceeded almost one and a half times!

Structurally "Bismarck" in many respects repeated "Scharnhorst", but fundamentally differed primarily in the main caliber artillery. A 380-mm gun with a 52-caliber barrel could fire 800-kg shells with an initial speed of 820 m / s. True, by reducing the maximum elevation angle to 30, the firing range compared to the 11-inch was reduced to 35.5 km. However, this value was considered excessive, since it seemed impossible to fight at such distances at that time.

The armor differed from the Scharnhorst mainly by the increase in the height of the main belt and the thickening of the upper belt to 145 mm. The deck armor, like the width of the anti-torpedo protection, remained the same. Roughly the same can be said about the power plant (12 Wagner boilers and 3 four-case turbo-gear units). The relative weight of the armor has slightly decreased (up to 40% of the displacement), but this cannot be called a drawback, since the ratio between protection and weapons has become more balanced.

But even such giants as "Bismarck" and "Tirpitz" could not satisfy the growing ambitions of the Fuhrer. At the beginning of 1939, he approved the project of the "H" -type battleship with a total displacement of over 62 thousand tons, armed with eight 406-mm guns. In total, it was supposed to have 6 such ships; two of them were laid in July-August. However, the outbreak of war canceled the plans of the Nazis. The programs for the construction of surface ships had to be curtailed, and in September 1939 Hitler could oppose 22 British and French battleships and battle cruisers with only the 11-inch Scharnhorst and Gneisenau (pocket battleships do not count). The Germans had to rely only on new raider tactics.

The first joint corsair operation "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" was carried out in November 1939. The result was the sinking of the British auxiliary cruiser Rawalpindi, a former passenger liner armed with old cannons. The success was, to put it mildly, modest, although Goebbels propaganda inflated this unequal duel to the scale of a major naval victory, and in the "Library of German Youth" series they even published a separate book called "The End of Rawalpindi".

In April 1940, both sisterships provided cover for the German invasion of Norway, and for the first time entered battle with a worthy enemy - the battle cruiser Rhinaun. The duel proceeded in poor visibility conditions and lasted more than two hours with interruptions. "Gneisenau" achieved two hits in the British, but he himself also received two 381-mm shells, one of which silenced the stern tower. The Scharnhorst was not hit, but its bow turret was also out of order due to damage caused by the storm.

Soon, another battle took place in Norwegian waters, which received a huge resonance in the navies around the world. On June 8, the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau stumbled upon the British aircraft carrier Glories, escorted by the destroyers Ardent and Ekasta. Using radar, the Germans opened fire from a range of 25 km and quickly achieved hits that damaged the flight deck and prevented the aircraft from being lifted into the air. The Glories burst into flames, rolled over and sank. Trying to save the aircraft carrier, the destroyers courageously rushed into a suicidal attack. Both were shot, but still one torpedo from the Ekasta hit the Scharnhorst. The battleship received more than 2500 tons of water and received a roll of 5 to starboard; two artillery turrets - aft 283 mm and one 150 mm - out of order; the travel speed dropped sharply. All this somewhat blurred the undoubted success of the operation.

The results of the first battle between battleships and an aircraft carrier inspired admirals with conservative views on naval warfare, but, alas, not for long. It soon became clear that the shooting of "Glories" was just a tragic coincidence, an exception to the rule ...

The finest hour of "Scharnhorst" and "Gneisenau" - their joint "ocean voyage" in January - March 1941. In two months of piracy in the Atlantic, they captured and sank 22 allied steamships with a total tonnage of over 115 thousand tons and returned to Brest with impunity.

But then fortune turned away from the Germans. While in French ports, the battleships began to undergo massive air attacks. Hardly was it possible to complete the repair of some damage, as the British bombs inflicted new ones. I had to carry my feet. The breakthrough across the English Channel to Germany in February 1942 was the last joint operation of Hitler's superraders.

On the night of February 27, the Gneisenau, which had just arrived in Kiel, was struck by a British 454-kg armor-piercing bomb in the area of \u200b\u200bthe first tower. The explosion caused enormous destruction and fire (230 gunpowder charges of the main caliber burst out at once). 112 sailors were killed and 21 wounded. The battleship was towed to Gotenhafen (Gdynia) for repairs. In the course of the latter, by the way, it was planned to replace the main artillery with six 380-mm guns. Alas, these plans remained on paper. In January 1943, all work was stopped, and on March 27, 1945, the Gneisenau skeleton was flooded in order to block the entrance channel.

"Scharnhorst" after a lengthy repair (and he was blown up by two mines during the English Channel breakthrough) moved to Norway, where then it mainly defended in the fjords. On December 26, 1943, flying the flag of Admiral Erich Bey, while trying to attack the allied convoy JW-55B, he was intercepted by British cruisers. The very first hit from the Norfolk cruiser disabled the German radar, which led to fatal consequences in the polar night. Soon the battleship Duke of York joined the cruisers, and the Scharnhorst's position became hopeless. After stubborn resistance, the raider, crippled by heavy shells, was finished off by torpedoes from British destroyers. The British picked up 36 people from the water - the remaining 1932 crew members of the fascist battleship were killed.

"Bismarck" and "Tirpitz" entered service in the Kriegsmarine during the war. The first military campaign for the lead ship was the last. The beginning of the operation, it would seem, was going well: the unexpected death of "Hood" in the eighth minute of the battle on May 24, 1941 plunged the British admirals into shock. However, the Bismarck also received a fatal hit from a 356-mm projectile diving under the armor belt. The ship received about 2 thousand tons of water, two steam boilers failed, the speed decreased by 3 knots. The rest is well known. Three days later, the fascist battleship went down. Of the 2092 people on board, 115 survived. Among the dead was Admiral Lutyens, a former hero of the Atlantic raid Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.

The Germans used the Tirpitz very carefully after the death of the sistership. As a matter of fact, he also had only one combat operation on his account - an almost fruitless campaign to Spitsbergen in September 1942. The rest of the time the superlinker hid in the Norwegian fjords and was methodically "beaten" by the British aircraft. In addition, on September 11, 1943, he received a powerful blow from under the water: the British ultra-small submarines X-6 and X-7 detonated 4 two-ton mines under his bottom. The last Hitlerite battleship was no longer able to sail under its own power:

It should be noted that in the naval historical literature "Bismarck" and "Tirpitz" are often referred to as almost the most powerful battleships in the world. There are several reasons for this. First, the Nazi propaganda said so. Secondly, the British played along with it, in order to justify the not always successful actions of their many times superior fleet. Thirdly, Bismarck's rating was greatly increased, in general, by the accidental death of Hood. But in reality, against the background of their counterparts, the German superlinkers did not stand out for the better. In terms of armor, armament and anti-torpedo protection, they were inferior to Richelieu, Littorio, and South Dakota, not to mention Yamato. The weak points of the "Germans" were capricious energy, "non-versatility" of 150-mm artillery, and imperfect radar equipment.

As for "Scharnhorst", it is usually criticized, which again is not entirely fair. Although it had the same shortcomings as the Bismarck (to which at first was added poor seaworthiness, which forced the rebuilding of the bow of the hull), it deserves a good assessment due to its smaller size in accordance with the criterion "cost-effectiveness". In addition, it should be borne in mind that this was the second in the world (after the "Dunkirk") completed project of a high-speed battleship, ahead of its more powerful "class brothers" in time. And if the Scharnhorst could be re-equipped with six 380-mm guns, then it could generally be considered a very successful battle cruiser, surpassing the British Ripals in almost all respects.

There was a time when the strength of the navy was determined by the number of battleships. Those days are long gone, but the power and brutal beauty of these marine mastodons still excites the imagination and generates controversy. Was battleships needed? Were they helpful or were they a big goal? Let's take a look at five legends of the battleship era.

The battleship of the Third Reich "Bismarck" lived a short but bright life, which still provides material for literature and cinema. May 24, 1941 "Bismarck" paired with "Prince Eugen" met with two British "Hood" and "Prince of Wales". During the ensuing battle, the Hood was sunk, but the Bismarck was also seriously damaged. The three-day pursuit of the German battleship began.

On May 27, the Bismarck took an unequal battle and received a lot of damage, but remained afloat. Even after exhausting all the ammunition, the ship did not lower the flag. In the end, the ship's commander, Lutyens, ordered the Kingstones to be opened and abandoned. It should be noted that the Bismarck received critical damage from a torpedo launched from an aircraft. The death of the Bismarck was an important signal that the battleships were losing their leading role in the fleet.

The ancient Japanese called their country Yamato, which means "great harmony", "peace". There is some kind of mockery in the fact that this name was given to the largest warship in the world. Its gigantic 460mm cannons were capable of sending one and a half ton rounds at a distance of 25 nautical miles (46 km). The ship's side armor was 410 mm. Despite its enormous weight, the Yamato developed a speed of 27 knots, although it was inferior to the lighter American battleships with their speed of 33 knots.

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Unlike the Bismarck, the main Japanese battleship remained idle for a long time, since the Japanese command was saving battleships for the alleged general engagement of the Japanese and American fleets. During the time of inactivity and transitions between the islands, "Yamato", standing in the port, received a hole from a torpedo from an American submarine. This battleship was also killed not from shells from American ships, but from bombs and torpedoes of the US naval aviation. It happened on April 7, 1945 off the coast of the island of Okinawa, where the Yamato, along with other ships, was sent to support the garrison of the island that was killed in unequal battles and suicidal attacks.

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The first two battleships Iowa and New Jersey of the Iowa class proved their worth during the Pacific War. They have many battles and victories on their account. The Missouri belonging to this class did not have time to prove itself in battles, but went down in history as the ship on which General MacArthur accepted the surrender of Japan. This ship remained in service in the US Navy for a long time, although it was withdrawn from the main fleet. The Missouri fired its last live salvo in 1991 during the Gulf War.

"October Revolution" and "Marat"

Both battleships of the Baltic Fleet of the Sevastopol project were laid down and built before the start of the First World War and were already considered obsolete by the Great Patriotic War. They did not participate in sea battles, since the exit to the Baltic Sea was mined on both sides, so neither our ships could safely leave the Gulf of Finland, nor the Germans could enter there.

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"October Revolution" and "Marat" took part in the defense of Leningrad, supporting the defenders of the city with fire from 305-mm and 120-mm guns. Both ships received serious damage (especially "Marat") during enemy air raids in September 1941, but remained afloat and after repairs continued to defend Leningrad. Anchors and an anti-aircraft gun (Ivan Tombasov's gun) of the "October Revolution" after the ship was decommissioned in 1956 were installed at the Anchor Square of Kronstadt in memory of the heroic defense of besieged Leningrad.

"Paris Commune"

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The British fleet dominated the Mediterranean Sea, and the passage through the Strait of Gibraltar was reliably protected, so the German ships did not even dream of getting into the Black Sea. The only battleship of the Black Sea Fleet "Paris Commune" took part in the defense of Sevastopol, destroying the ground forces of the enemy besieging the city. In total, the battleship's main battery guns fired three thousand rounds. Anti-aircraft artillery successfully repelled 21 air attacks, thanks to which the ship did not receive any serious damage throughout the war.

World War II became the swan song of the big ships of the line. Operations in the Pacific made it clear that supremacy at sea had passed from battleships to aircraft carriers. Since then, the United States has relied on aircraft carrier groups, which have become the main instrument of global domination. But that's a completely different story.

More precisely, two answers. The first is Strasbourg. It is, of course, not a battleship, but a "heavy artillery ship". The main differences of which from the cruisers of that time are as follows: a ship cannot be drowned by dive bombers with 250 kg and even 500 kg bombs; the ship does not lose speed from one torpedo hit into the CMU zone; the ship is protected from high-explosive shells of the main linear calibers (this is much more than you might first think).

The correct answer number two can be obtained if you remember: the best ships of the Second World War were designed in the USSR in the late 40s and early 50s. And battleships were no exception. Accordingly, the best battleship of WWII is project 24, this one here:

The features of this project - theoretical, yes - are that it allows you to get a ship capable of maintaining combat effectiveness after torpedo hits; practically invulnerable to bombing aircraft (protection against 1000-kg armor-piercing bomb dropped from a height of 3000 m), having a wide free maneuvering zone under fire of 16 "guns (100-160 cables); advanced anti-aircraft and radar weapons, initially included in the project; and with all that, running at 30 knots. Let us be proud of our domestic engineers and move on.

Soviet projects of the 40s are the only projects of classic ships in which the experience of the war was more or less fully taken into account. Actually, that's why they were the best. This is, in fact, important. The complex phenomenon of the "aviation-artillery fleet" did not last long. Ridiculously short-lived - in comparison not only with the classic sailing-artillery, but even in comparison with the "steam armored". Real experience - technical and especially combat - was very limited, which does not allow us to consider it at least somewhat exhaustive, providing answers to many burning issues. That is why Soviet projects are especially interesting.

Further, in society for some reason it is not customary to discuss big battleships. Suspicious Japaneseophiles see here a conspiracy of the Anglo-Saxons, who do not want to recognize the primacy of the Yamato. There is a certain consensus like "with monsters of 70 thousand tons, everything would go down the drain." This is a wrong, bad consensus. There was Japan. A country with the economy and industry of Italy, a country that has been waging a large-scale war since 1937 - and, nevertheless, has built 2.7 battleships of 70 thousand tons. This alone should make one think about the correctness of the "pipe theory". It is hardly worth assuming that a much stronger UK economy would collapse if, say, 5 "monsters" were built.

On the other hand, the same Great Britain successfully survived a twofold increase in the price of a battleship in 1900-1910. At the same time, thanks to the "Fischer revolution", in 1910 the cost of the fleet was 36 million feet - against 31 million pounds in 1901. Was there room for such maneuvers between the First and Second World Wars? Yes it was. The massive construction of "Washington" cruisers was not a cheap pleasure. The cost of maintaining such ships was approximately 0.6 of the cost of maintaining the "Washington" battleship. In the United States, in the 30s, the cost of maintaining personnel of heavy and light cruisers was 1.5 times higher than the cost of maintaining personnel of battleships. The total cost of maintaining 2 ... 3 cruisers of 10,000 tons over 10 years was comparable to the costs of building a battleship of 35,000 tons. In other words, a modern replacement (with a certain decrease in the number) of battleships with new ones and the rejection of cruising "overcompensation" provided the possibility of creating a full-fledged battleship from large battleships.

In this way, approximately. The fight against battleships within the "Washington System" was not directlyassociated with the high cost of the battleships themselves. This struggle was based on the simple and understandable desire of Great Britain - to avoid a direct and obviously losing competition with the United States, to maintain the "two-state" standard in relation to Japan and Italy - coinciding with the simple and understandable desire of the United States to obtain for so a fleet equal to the British.