20th Century Monitor Ships

[FromMyColdDeadHand]

To take my mind off the impending doom of the air-borne AIDS that will kill us all I stumbled on 20th century monitors. More of an airplane history guy, more of a fleet action WWII interest, but I had never heard of these.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/HMS_Abercrombie_%28F109%29.jpg

I had wondered why for amphib landings like D-Day, why they didn't just take an old battle ship and ram it into the beach and use the main guns to clear the beach and nearby fortifications. I see that they had something like this. More mobile artillery than beach clearing, but not your normal battleship. One or two guns, often with guns from obsolete/cancelled battleships or even pre-dreadnought ships.

Largest naval guns ever? The Yamato class? Sort of. The English 18 inch (versus 18.1) fired heavier shells- 33km away...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monitors_of_World_War_II
-Pre-Dreadnought main guns
-Secondary guns based on defense from torpedo boats or destroyers
-7 knots top speed
-Extensive torpedo belts due to lack of maneuver protection
-Needed Control of the sea since they were sitting ducks
- AC130 of the sea


HMS Lord Clive
-Ony could fire to starboard....
-had to shoot at high angle to reduce sheering stress on ship
-train rail on deck to move shells
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x8QwHdm1RU

So either short-bus battleships, or the Ron Jeremy's of the sea......

[sundance435]

They did park the heavy guns pretty close to Iwo, but they were also blasting at an actual mountain so it wasn't incredibly effective. I don't really know why they didn't get closer at Normandy, unless they thought the Luftwaffe would be more of a factor than it was or it would've clogged up the lanes for the waves of transports. I imagine the 12" and 16" guns could've made short work of the concrete bunkers.

[kwelz]

You would probably like this channel! He has a few videos on such things.


https://www.youtube.com/user/Drachinifel

[utahjeepr]

For the Normandy invasion the pre-landing bombardment was fairly short (6 or 7 hours) so as not to give the Germans time to reinforce the defenses. However it did involve some 2000+ bombers, 5 or 6 battleships, 20 cruisers, a few of those monitors you mention, and somewhere in the neighborhood of 75 destroyers.

ETA. bombardment of some of the Pacific landing sites went on for days.