I revisited the site www.combinedfleet.com. ; It's an excellent site.  After revisiting the battleship comparison page, I thought it would be of interest here:

http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htm


.....let the debates begin!   

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The Battle of the River Plate being a classic case in point.

Plus the out-of-scope consideration that has much to do with which will win is the human factor.  Do each ship have experienced and competent skipper?  How's the training and experience of the crew, and the fatigue factor also plays in.

Case in point:  Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.  The US sent in two BB's, the Washington and the South Dakoda along with 4 DD's to go against the Japanese bombardment force to bombard Henderson field which included Kirishima with various CA's, CL's and a bunch of DD's.  The South Dakoda's electrical power went out shortly afetr the battle began, but the Washington prevailed.  The point I want to make is even though it was an American victory, it was barely.  Washington had radar, but they didn't trust the new technology.  That resulted in the Americans taking more damage than they would have if they trusted the radar.

Let me clarify the radar that I mentioned.  There's several types of radar.  There's surface search radar, fire control radar, and air search radar.  The radar that I was speaking of is fire control radar.  Previously, obtaining a firing solution was accomplished by optical rangefinders.  In a night battle, a fire control radar trump optical rangefinders anyday.  And besides, in 1942, the Japanese were arguably the best naval night fighters in the business.

Adding to your comments:

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While the first "ironclad ship of the line" was the French  "La Gloire", and there were already several ironclads (used in the Crimean War as bombardment ships), the battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia definitely pointed out that all-wood ships were passé.

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Dreadnought was the first "all big guns" battleship, discarding the secondary armament generally being carried in side turrets and casemates.  Dreadnought's design, (btw 1905) was confirmed by the Battle of Tsushima Straights in which the Japanese defeated the Russians.  Admittedly the Japanese were better trained and armed, but one of the key features was the accurate, long range firing of the Japanese big guns.

Accurate long range firepower was to be the hallmark of the Dreadnought era combatants

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I thought HMS Warrior was the first all metal ship of the line. Wooden war ships really became obsolete with the invention of the explosive shell in the 19th century. After that really it was only a matter of time before ships were made entirely out of iron.

Also the Battle of Tsushima straits isn't a good case study for warship design but for training and tactics. The Japanise had been trained by the Royal Navy and as the Royal Navy had ruled the sea for the previous 100 years it is fair to say that they were the best.

The Russians on the other hand barely knew how to control their own ships and on their way to Tsushima they actually managed to attack the Hull fishing fleet in the North Sea thinking that they were Japanise torpedo boats.

http://www.hullwebs.co.uk/content/l-20c/disaster/dogger-bank/voyage-of-dammed.ht...

Yamashiro in her glory!



More Glory!



Yamashiro in trouble.

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Reasonable question.  Shoot Parshall an email.  He's good at responding.  I wouldn't think the omission was due to bias, but his response would be interesting.  But be forwarned.  I once challenged him in a discussion about the battle of Midway, thinking I knew a few things about the battle, and he schooled me pretty thoroughly.  He knows his stuff.