Turkish Yavuz vs Parizhskaya Kommuna

@Gargantua:

Honestly, what happened to the Hood was probably one of the luckiest shots of the war.

If we were to relive that same historical battle 10 times, I highly doubt we would see that one shot outcome again.

Oh, I’m sure that there are alternate universes out there where Hood was sent to the breakers in 1948, the “Hero of the Battle of the Denmark Strait”. It’s just that the one we share isn’t one of them. Let’s just say that 1941 wasn’t a good year to be sailing on Royal Navy capital ships…

-Midnight_Reaper

I think I Go with the Sherman Firefly in this case, since I prefer a 5-men-crew in Tanks.
This is my plus I give to the Firefly ,for wich I choose the Firefly over the T34/85.

agreed. the reds would win on land, the allies in the air…

i like the first three us cruisers designed and build as treaty cruisers, the Pensacola class, the Northampton class, and the Portland class. these to me are beautiful ships, and represent the “best of the heavy cruisers”. they were treaty cruisers and fulfilled their roles beautifully. They packed a punch with 9-10 8"guns, 8 duel purpose 5" guns, and by 1944/5 they had a deadly AA gun compliment. plus the 5"/38 is considered to be the best duel purpose naval gun of the entire war. Their main battery was superb and they helped hold the line in the months after pearl. they were present from coal sea to the Doolittle raid. from midway to Guadalcanal. they were always there, both of the Pensacola class survived the war, the Indianapolis suffered a tragic loss in the closing months and the Northampton class lost half of their numbers. But IMO, they were the best…

I don’t know much about the 25-pounder, but as regards the famed German 88: it was excellent in both its original role as an anti-aircraft weapon and in its later additional role as an anti-tank gun, but I’m not sure how well it would work as “traditional artillery”.  Anti-tank guns and anti-aircraft guns are both intended to work as direct-fire weapons, which basically means shooting in a straight line at a target you can see (at virtually no elevation for an anti-tank gun and at a very high elevation for an anti-aircraft gun).  The 88’s high muzzle velocity was well suited to both jobs.  Field artillery and divisional heavy artillery, on the other hand, are often called upon to deliver indirect fire: plunging fire against targets which can’t be seen (a classic example being WWI artillery barrages).  This requires lower muzzle velocity and different sighting mechanisms than the 88 had.

Thanks you two.
The Baltimore looked like a class leading ship from what I could make out from Wiki.

@jim010:

Technically the Italian ship should win this one with better speed, but when you throw in Italian caution in how they used the ships and the aggressiveness of the British, I would say it would be inconclusive.  Italians would withdraw at the first sign of trouble.

Good point.  The Royal Navy benefited in WWII from a long tradition of having well-trained crews and of having  commanding officers who were encouraged to act boldly and confidently in combat.  One of the R.N.'s maxims was something along the lines of “No captain can do very wrong if he lays his ship alongside that of the enemy.”

Nice. That’s really interesting