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On 10 November 1942 the Vichy French Battleship opened fire on Allied landing vessels in Casablanca after being re-floated following her sinking on 8 November.

On 10 November 1942 the Vichy French Battleship opened fire on Allied landing vessels in Casablanca after being re-floated following her sinking on 8 November. TBF Avengers were dispatched to deal with her, but they lacked AP bombs and were relying on 1000lb general purpose bombs instead. Jean Bart was struck by one such bomb on her starboard side toward the rear: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Jean_Bart_80-G-31605.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Jean_Bar... And she was hit again near the bow: https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7024/27032831370_9e28e3b6bd_o.jpg https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7024/27032831370_9e28e3b6bd_o... The rearward hit would go on to sink the battleship, this time permanently. On 22 May 1941 the HMS Warspite was struck by a 500 lb from German bombers, and had her side ripped open and had to immediately steam home least she possibly tear her own guts out. It would take 4 months of repairs before she was ready to be sent back into the fight. In both instances we're looking at about 1/10th the payload of explosives of a Tomahawk crippling or sinking a well-armored battleship with 1 or 2 lucky hits. The reason is because WW2 battleships employed "all or nothing" armor, where some parts of the ship were extremely well protected (turret, belt) and others had extremely thin armor - which meant even a non-AP bomb could sink a battleship if it was simply big enough boom to rip the ship open in these non-armored areas. A Tomahawk is guided and carries a very big warhead, so assuming it was programmed to know where the armor on the ship it was fighting had a weak point I wouldn't be surprised if it was able to cripple or kill an Iowa class vessel in just one hit. Also we do actually have plenty of modern missiles able to penetrate 12 inches of hardened steel armor. The AGM-65 Maverick has penetration against rolled homogeneous steel armor of between 1000 to 1500 mm, or between 40 inches and 60 inches of penetration. It's designed to kill tanks that are using modern composite armor, and needs that level of penetration to do its job. Against simple steel armor, of the kind on a WW2 battleship, it would slice through it like a knife through butter.

foldr 7y ago
Right, but those bombs may have been designed with armor piercing in mind. Battleships' main batteries fired both AP and HE shells, the latter being unable to penetrate heavily armored targets. I take your point re the Maverick. But you do need to make a big hole in a battleship to actually sink it. To kill a tank you just need to make a small hole and spray the insides. A 16" AP shell weighs about as much as a Tomahawk and is traveling much faster. Sure, it has a smaller charge, but also a lot more kinetic energy. In fact, the charge itself was irrelevant to the shell's armor piercing capacity, as AP shells were fused to explode after the armor was penetrated.

foldr 7y ago

Right, but those bombs may have been designed with armor piercing in mind. Battleships' main batteries fired both AP and HE shells, the latter being unable to penetrate heavily armored targets. I take your point re the Maverick. But you do need to make a big hole in a battleship to actually sink it. To kill a tank you just need to make a small hole and spray the insides. A 16" AP shell weighs about as much as a Tomahawk and is traveling much faster. Sure, it has a smaller charge, but also a lot more kinetic energy. In fact, the charge itself was irrelevant to the shell's armor piercing capacity, as AP shells were fused to explode after the armor was penetrated.