Topic: World's largest cruise ship docks in England

[Just plain old Punisher]

Eh, it was slow, under armoured, and built in 1912 =P

[J. Carney]

Eh, it was slow, under armoured, and built in 1912 =P

Actually, the Fuso was a VERY good design- dispite the poor placement of the #3 and #4 turrets, which gave them VERY limited firing arcs. They were well protected armor-wise for their time, were capable of almost 26 knots after their modernization, and had very decent main guns. Now, they were kinda weak on secondary armament (a common weakness of WWI BB's) and were almost totally devoid of any AA armament; but taken as a whole, they were pretty decent fighting ships.

[Jack Morris]

Displacement: 39,154 tons
Length: 698 ft (213 m)
Beam: 100 ft 5 in (30.61 m)
Draught: 31 ft 9 in (9.68 m)
Propulsion: 
Speed: 25 knots (46 km/h)
Range: 
Complement: 1,400
Armament: 12 × 14 inch (360 mm) guns,
16 × 6 inch (200 mm),
8 × 5 inch (100 mm) DP,
up to 37 × 25 mm AA

That's pretty impressive AA firepower

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Alabama_(BB-60)

The Bama only had slightly more AA, though they had some 40MMs in the mix vs straight 25MMs. Fuso actually had more secondary firepower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_battleship_Bismarck

[Just plain old Punisher]

Eh, it was slow, under armoured, and built in 1912 =P

Actually, the Fuso was a VERY good design- dispite the poor placement of the #3 and #4 turrets, which gave them VERY limited firing arcs. They were well protected armor-wise for their time, were capable of almost 26 knots after their modernization, and had very decent main guns. Now, they were kinda weak on secondary armament (a common weakness of WWI BB's) and were almost totally devoid of any AA armament; but taken as a whole, they were pretty decent fighting ships.

I disagree. It had the armour of a battlecruiser for the most part, and we all know how much of a failure most battlecruiser designs were. It's poor top speed meant that it couldn't dictate the range in any gunnery duel, something that essential for a under-armoured warship.