After looking up careers on US battleships, I must edit my initial post giving prper credit for the Atlantic service of US battleships. The USS Texas and New York were used as convoy escorts in the Atlantic. Some in the north but mostly the Casablanca convoys and did so often. They also served in the Western Med and covered the invasion of Southern France before Texas going to Normandy. They both ended the war in the Pacific and were in action for long periods racking up impressive miles steamed and shells fired.
It is somewhat ironic that the “better� of the older battleships were withdrawn ad completely rebuilt but only returned for the finishing off of Japan while the "crappy" old worthless ones were used when it mattered most.
The USS Texas is moored in Houston and is a very worthwhile visit. She is the only surviving dreadnaught type battleship built before 1940 making her very unique.
Few older warships survived the scrapper’s torch. Besides the Texas, the British built Japanese Mikasa at Yokosuka, a predreadnaught and the 2nd class battleship, Italian built (re-classed as Armored Cruiser) Greek Georgos Averoff at Poros Island.
Also, there is the Russian light cruiser Aurora at St. Petersburg and the US armored cruiser Olympia, Dewey’s flagship at Manila, in Philadelphia.

If a US battleship is a desire for building in SH3, the sisters Texas and New York, would historically be the ones that spent by far more time in the Atlantic than all others combined. Plus, we can photograph her to be accurate (Texas) (I have many photos taken in 1993)

Wulfmann

That's good to know, since I absolutely love bb's with midship turrets. I know, the arc of fire isn't good, but they just ... look good :88) . Not surprisingly, some of my favorites are the HMS Agincourt and USS Arkansas.

@AG124 - the whale factory will have minor changes to the actual 3d model, as well as resizing so that it's appropriate for a 15000-20000 ton ship. I might not classify it as a tanker, since I want it to be an extremely rare vessel that you encounter maybe once in a career. After all, it would be boring if you could rack up 50000 tons a mission by sinking a couple of them each patrol.

If the whale factory will not be classified as a tanker, what classification will you use"

Actually, some US battleships weren't scrapped but were sunk as targets instead :huh:. This is a list of US battleships from WW2, not including cancelled ones but including ones used as training ships:

Utah (converted to Aerial Target Ship in WW2) - Sunk at Pealr Harbour.
Wyoming (converted to Training Ship in WW2) - Scrapped 1947.
Arkansas - Sunk as A-Bomb target 1946.
New York - Sunk as target 1948.
Texas - Donated as Museum 1948.
Nevada - Sunk as target 1948.
Oklahama - Destroyed in Pear Harbour, wreck sank under tow to scrapyard 1946.
Pennsylvania - Sunk as target 1948.
Arizona - Sunk at Pearl Harbour.
New Mexico - Scrapped 1948.
Idaho - Scrapped 1948.
Mississippi - Scrapped 1956 after being used as training ship.
Tennessee - Scrapped 1958.
California - Scrapped 1958.
Colorado - Scrapped 1958.
Maryland - Scrapped 1958.
West Virginia - Scrapped 1961.
Washington - Scrapped 1962.
North Carolina - Museum Ship 1962.
South Dakota - Scrapped 1962.
Alabama - Museum Ship 1962.
Massachusettes - Museum Ship 1962.
Indiana - Scrapped 1962.
Iowa - Still in Reserve?
New Jersey - Museum Ship.
Missouri - Museum Ship.
Wisconsin - Still in Reserve?

Too bad a couple of the Pearl Harbour survivors couldn't have benn kept as museums too. I also never understood why the carrier Enterprise was scrapped.

There was no shortage of US battleships in WW2, and yet there is not one in SH3 :nope:. Of course, most were used almost exclusively in the Pacific anyway.

I meant of those "not" sunk. And, I was referring to the older ones of which only Texas exist today.
I too am annoyed they scrapped the Big "E". She was the most important single ship of the US fleet in the war.
That was a sin. :damn:

So was scrapping HMS Warspite, the true spirit of British battleships was epitomized by that one ship more than any other.
Scrapped!!!!
Jerks!!!:rock:

Sad to think the Rodney, King George V and Duke of York are gone forever but Bismarck and Scharnhorst still survive, preserved by Davy Jones for future generations, perhaps to one day visit.

That which was found is lost and that which was lost is found!!!
OK that is not at all what the Bible says but that is what a Naval Bible would say about the victors and the vanquished!! Book of Tovey 13:13

Wulfmann

The wreck of the Bismark has already been found, by Dr Robert Ballard. The Scharnhorst is still out there somewhere though.

I don't remember who it was, but I remember a documentary about the Scharnhorst. She was found.

:o Really?!! I never heard that - If anyone has a link, could you post it? This is very interesting...

BTW - What happened to the wreck of the Graf Spee? No one ever seems to know.

Speaking of the Scharnhorst (and Gneisneau), they really should have been included in the game. I don;t know if they would be very easy to make using existing parts, either.

Most of the "Graf Spee" is still in shallow water off Montevideo. Interestingly, some of her hull plates were used during the war to repair the "Carnarvon Castle", a British AMC that had been badly damaged by a German commerce raider. A couple of years ago some divers visited the wreck to monitor its state, although I don't remember whether or not it's in good condition.

Yeah. I'm pretty sure the documentary was on The History Channel. Norwegians discovered it back in 2000. Here is a link I found after Googling it for a bit. I'm sure you could find more if you Google it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/wwt...horst_04.shtml

I did some searching - the Yamato and Musashi have been found too.

The Bismarck has been re-found 4 or 5 times now, one Australian guy took a little sub down and saw it with his own eyes.

Uruguay says it is raising the Graf Spee. I did a story on her and went to Uruguay in 1997 for research.. They have brought up parts, a 150MM was all that had been salvaged when I visited but since the gunnery director and other stuff has been retrieved.
Bismarck is so deep she (err, he) will survive long after the youngest here has died but most ships will have been eaten by Rusticles in the near future.

Not sure I can agree with the statement the Scharnhorst magazines exploded. The Germans had moved the ammunition from the forward magazine to the stern turret after the A&B were knocked out and claimed to have fired every shell.
It is possible they left brass cases, the charges and some ammo, who knows. Not saying that was not the case but believe it adds to the mystery somewhat.

Wulfmann

Is any of the ship still visible, or is the entire thing below the harbor surface? I've been up close to an old wrecked merchant ship, and that thing was impressive despite being only a 2000-3000 ton civilian vessel. A WWII-era capital ship would be an amazing sight.

There are still a lot of old relics that need to be found. I hope someone gets around to diving the "Indianapolis" and the Japanese carriers from Midway. I know that Dr. Ballard found a small piece of the "Kaga", but missed the main debris site.

BTW, bad news with the factory ship - the game seems to be rejecting my 3d changes. Instead of a large modded ship it gave me the standard small tanker when I went into museum mode. :damn:

The Graf Spee is past the three mile limit off the coast of Montevideo.
It sank to the deck but a huge storm pushed it on its side. Over the years it settled deep into the soft mud of the River Plate. This has been what has preserved the Graf Spee and while it makes salvaging her more difficult there would be little left to salvage if it were not for the preserving mud.
The Graf Spee is in two pieces. Langstorff set off the charges himself so no one else would be responsible. They used the torpedo warheads as detonators for the main magazines.. The captain pulled the activation chords from a boat and they left. The after magazine blew the latter part of the ship away (remember the pictures of the twisted after turret) but the forward charges did not go off and the water tight doors being left open to insure her sinking, allowed water to rush forward so the fire did not ignite the charges either. The ship was intended to be much more seriously destroyed but was bad enough the British could not raise the ship and repair it.
The Graf Spee was not scuttled because of the belief a big squadron was waiting for her. Her boiler was destroyed in the battle with Harwood's cruisers. Because the Graf Spee was diesel powered it used a heavy slug like oil for fuel that had to be thinned with this now destroyed boiler. Without thinning this fuel is like fudge in consistency so there was literally no way the ship could move. They used what little thinned fuel they had to crawl outside the harbor to blow up the ship. She could not move so there was no choice other than letting the ship fall into the hands of the British because Uruguay was extremely pro-British.
I wrote a story about this in the World and I magazine in Dec 1999 issue. The grandson of the Uruguayan ambassador that handled the negotiations with all parties emailed me stating I was the first person to finally explain what actually happened.
I asked AP if they would like to revise their annual anniversary blurb and they politely basically said they didn't care what really happened.
They preferred the story wrongly told. Who can argue with mainstream media?

Wulfmann

My prayers have finally been answered:

http://www.subsim.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=43572

Yeah; the press can be clueless about military matters. I'm a little tired of seeing reporters call B-1B's "fighters", or Bradleys and M-109's "tanks".

BTW, I've finally created a new ship model that actually incorporates structural changes with 3d editing. It's a generic tanker based on the many non-mass produced ships you could find before the war. I'd like to make some changes, such as enlarging the funnel and using different cranes. It would also be a good idea to shrink the hull so that it can represent a ship smaller than he T-3. Th game is biased in favor of large merchant ships, thus making it too easy to rack up impressive scores. A real U-Boat skipper would consider a vessel of 10,000 tons or more to be a real prize; most of the successful patrols I've studied show the largest vessel sunk to be maybe 7500-8000 tons max.

A screenshot, with one of the default t-3 for comparison.

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/1222/tank16ye.jpg

http://img396.imageshack.us/img396/6074/tank29wh.jpg