I guess that's one way to put: "She's a later design than any of you and thus more technologically advanced."
She wasn't really a later design, her construction overlapped pretty much all the last Axis classes. There hadn't been any real groundbreaking advances in the fairly minimal time between the start of their construction and hers. It was simply a matter of priorities in characteristics. The Iowas were intensely focused on speed, there role as envisaged in 1939 when ordered was as a counter to by then known to be 30 knot Kongous, she was to be the Fast wing of the new US battleline. Almost all the extra tonnage from the escalator clause was spent gaining about six or so knots over the South Dakota and the bunkerage to give her the legs needed for her envisioned role, her protection and firepower only minimally improved on them.
In her intended role of engaging the Kongou though with a speed advantage, good protection from their guns, and a major firepower advantage she would have fairly easily fulfilled her goal. However when compared to other 40-45,000~ ton designs she looks a tad unbalanced. That wasn't seen as a major concern however as the job of dealing with the main enemy battleline was intended to be the job of the 65,000 ton roughly 28 knot Montanas which would have operated with the South Dakota and North Carolina class as the main line if the plans of 1939 had actually come to pass.
However by the time the date for laying down the first Montana was approaching it was already 1942 and obvious that carriers would be the center of future battles, and that meant fast ships able to operate with them fully. The Iowa could and so they still got built, the Montana couldn't and they got canceled. Thus the Iowa became the "ultimate" US battleship rather by accident. In terms of balance as a battleship she could have benefited notably from settling for 30 knots and a wider beam and using the freed displacement for added protection. As it was her strong firepower and high speed, but mediocre protection made her merely about average as a ship of the line, but the high speed and endurance was certainly useful as a carrier escort and for chasing down cripples or stragglers wounded by air raids which was probably more important in sort of war that actually developed.
Her very large overall dimensions and excess power gave her strong growth potential though. If battleships had remained useful enough to warrant significant refit later on much of the issue of her side protection (her deck was solid) could have probably been addressed by expanding the outer plating into a true decapping belt, but there simply wasn't any sane reason to invest in the kinds of major hull work performed on many inter-war era battleships during or post WWII.
I guess that's one way to put: "She's a later design than any of you and thus more technologically advanced."
The Trento class cruisers (that were treaty cruisers, so with less than 10.000t standard load) already had 150.000 hp in the mid '20s. It was only a question of how much space and weight one wanted to use for the machinery.
However by the time the date for laying down the first Montana was approaching it was already 1942 and obvious that carriers would be the center of future battles, and that meant fast ships able to operate with them fully. The Iowa could and so they still got built, the Montana couldn't and they got canceled. Thus the Iowa became the "ultimate" US battleship rather by accident. In terms of balance as a battleship she could have benefited notably from settling for 30 knots and a wider beam and using the freed displacement for added protection. As it was her strong firepower and high speed, but mediocre protection made her merely about average as a ship of the line, but the high speed and endurance was certainly useful as a carrier escort and for chasing down cripples or stragglers wounded by air raids which was probably more important in sort of war that actually developed.
You had me with you until the bolded bit. All US ships are required to be no more than 108 feet and change wide. Otherwise they wouldn't fit through the Panama Canal. The Nimitz-class carriers are the most prominent exceptions, but this was both long after WWII, and now irrelevant with the new locks now operational (true there were feasibility studies for expanding the canal around this time, but those were with the Montana's in mind, and with them canceled the plans were dropped too). So a wider beam was never an option.
And the Iowa's side protection is just fine, given that all BBs have armor plans built around the idea of being able to resist her own shells, and the AP shells the Iowas fired had trajectories similar to the Yamato's 18-inch shells. Couple with the fact that the admittedly lighter shell was able to achieve a higher muzzle velocity that the Yamato shell, that means that the impact has similar kinetic energy as said shell.
No, the place where the Iowas were weak was the Torpedo protection.
Hm?Come on in.That's right.Here, have some tea.Zuiun Festival!Commandant TesteWhat? Things have gotten tense between each country's battleships?Sure, they might be worried about what their comrades back home would think of it, but I'd thought people were starting to get along here at base...Roma, Bismarck, and Warspite have drunk the night away at Houshou's place before.How foolish!I'm champion!!Yamato: 150,000 horsepower
Littorio: 140,000 horsepower
Gangut (post-remodel): ~60,000 horsepower
Bismarck: 138,400 horsepower
Warspite (post-remodel): 80,000 horsepowerIowa: 212,000 horsepowerPantPantPantAnd us battleship comrades can just resolve our differences with sumo, right?Last time you said that, we compared horsepower, Iowa-chan came out on top, and there was a lot of grumbling, wasn't there?
See post #2285842That power... must be her youthfulness, huh?PantWhen I asked them recently if they'd like to get together for a dinner party, they turned me down in this strange way for some reason.