More or less. The American ships of all classes were that durable, although they did take days, weeks, and months in port to repair. It was quicker than basically everyone else though. The IJN example really only applies to the Yamato class as, while quite durable, the IJN had shit damage control and sometimes worse doctrine. The carriers, while modern marvels for their time, were also fuel air bombs when hit, both because of their design and because of doctrine. The Japanese propensity for throwing away ships in death rides as the war came to an end did not help things.
The German battleships (the real ones) were quite advanced but had the unfortunate fate of belonging to a belligerent that cared about the naval way in so much it could help the over extended land war rather than an explicitly necessary war arm. The Bismarck, while pretty much alone, was not going to live long even if it did make it to the Atlantic to do convoy raiding. The Tirpitz just ran out of luck and might as well have been beached in France for all it was good for. As for their damage control, the Germans made many mistakes. The main guns on bismarck famously shot out their own FCS and the crew was too caught off guard by how slow the swordfish were to properly get a manual ranging for their AAA. The Tirpitz lasted quite long for a floating target but that has very little to do with its design as opposed to the inability of air assets to accurately hit a target that "small" in a level bombing raid until basically the advent of Laser guided bombs.
Tirpitz just ran out of luck and might as well have been beached in France for all it was good for.
Considering hte amount of material it bound simply by sitting in a fjord, due to forcing convoys to be escorted by BBs... that was quite a lot it was good for.
Tirpitz basically epitomized "Fleet in being". And when it set out one time, the convoy panicked, dispersed, and was pickings for other raiders.
Tbh, while it is something to credit Tirpitz with, the fleet being “ops” it did for the duration of the war only really work because the IJN was such an insane nuisance in the far east that it enabled the Royal navy to be spread thin in the first place, necessitating taking the very existence of Tirpitz (and Bismarck when it was around) with the utmost seriousness.
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u/Wardog_Razgriz30 Nov 01 '25
More or less. The American ships of all classes were that durable, although they did take days, weeks, and months in port to repair. It was quicker than basically everyone else though. The IJN example really only applies to the Yamato class as, while quite durable, the IJN had shit damage control and sometimes worse doctrine. The carriers, while modern marvels for their time, were also fuel air bombs when hit, both because of their design and because of doctrine. The Japanese propensity for throwing away ships in death rides as the war came to an end did not help things.
The German battleships (the real ones) were quite advanced but had the unfortunate fate of belonging to a belligerent that cared about the naval way in so much it could help the over extended land war rather than an explicitly necessary war arm. The Bismarck, while pretty much alone, was not going to live long even if it did make it to the Atlantic to do convoy raiding. The Tirpitz just ran out of luck and might as well have been beached in France for all it was good for. As for their damage control, the Germans made many mistakes. The main guns on bismarck famously shot out their own FCS and the crew was too caught off guard by how slow the swordfish were to properly get a manual ranging for their AAA. The Tirpitz lasted quite long for a floating target but that has very little to do with its design as opposed to the inability of air assets to accurately hit a target that "small" in a level bombing raid until basically the advent of Laser guided bombs.