Gunnery Score Sheet: Fill & Download for Free

How likely? ZERO. Unless your “career” in the military is only one year long.In the Army, weapons qual is a minimum of annually. I say minimum because larger, crew served weapons, like Tank gunnery, are an additional qualification set. The points go in you promotion score sheet, same as your P.T. test scores.Navy? Chime in here… Submarine crewman? I (personally) cannot se a lot of need for individual weapons on a sub for most sailors.

TL:DR - There was barely a sheet of tissue paper between them.(No, I’m not going to make it as simple as that. Read on if you want to know what I really think; of course, you may not be that bothered…)Thank you for asking me to answer such a great question! It does make a really nice change to look at some alternative pairings in a ‘face-off’ question and, better still, not to be asked directly ‘which one would win’. Best of all, these two ships were pretty specifically tied into the same local naval arms race, with one being the direct counter to the other.Actually, it was more complicated than that. Isn’t it always? Richelieu is often considered to have been a specific response by France to the Italian Littorio class battleship programme but, in reality, the Franco-Italian battleship competition of the 1930s was not a discrete sequence of events. Rather, it was part of the latter phase of the drawn-out Franco-Fascist naval arms race of the 1920s and 1930s. Truthfully, we need not go into this at all; it really is not relevant to answering this question, but it is a fascinating episode in the history of naval architecture and goes a long way to explaining the apparent discrepancies in European battleship design and US design of the ‘same period’ (the Second World War). Enough of that.Pictures!(Above: Richelieu at Dakar in 1941.)(Above: Vittorio Veneto, brand new and unfinished in 1940. Note the absence of the lower rangefinder and other missing superstructure elements. Wikipedia says she was completed in this picture…)Both pictures lifted straight from the Wikipedia articles on each ship, so here you go - the links to the articles, just to be kind and respectful:French battleship Richelieu - WikipediaItalian battleship Vittorio Veneto - WikipediaSo, I owe you an answer. Was Richelieu or Vittorio Veneto the better battleship?Well, so many sources agree that the best of the two ships was, in fact, the Richelieu and by quite a significant margin:http://www.combinedfleet.com/baddest.htmOh, sorry! That just says ‘America’… silly me. No, but the best-scoring non-US battleship, according to the very popular ‘Battleship Comparison’, was the French Richelieu. She comes in just behind the South Dakota on points so, y’know, seems fair, right? I have no further comment on that.What I will say is this:Richelieu, despite being part of the Vichy fleet-in-being for two and a half years, started and ended the war in Allied service, while Veneto was an Axis ship right up until her surrender & inactivation. This meant two things for the French ship:The USA.Gunnery radar.Richelieu had the benefit of a 1943 refit in the USA, which granted her a suite of Bofors guns and Oerlikon cannon to seriously beef up her air defences, along with then-current air and surface search radar. She also benefited from the ongoing improvements in Allied radar technology, receiving a British Type 284 gunnery radar in 1944. None of the Littorio class got that sort of extensive upgrade to their AA defences or surface fire control.So, by 1944 the Richelieu was clearly the better battleship, being the ‘147.5-pointer’ which beats the Veneto in the popular website.But really, is that a fair assessment? (Shakes head slowly, pouting). The Italian battleship was long out of the picture by 1944. So what would be the comparison there? Recently-refitted battleship is superior to one which has been interned for a year? We need to go back through time… again.Can I get a rewind?The Origins:Capital ship construction having been largely curtailed after WW1, only Britain, France and Italy had any legal allowance for building new battleships in the 1920s & early 1930s. Seventy thousand tons total and thirty-five thousand tons individually were the limits for each nation. Britain used hers up on two ships with 16-inch guns. France & Italy held onto their cards for a bit longer.Germany built three powerful ships which accorded with the Versailles Treaty; ten-thousand tonners each with 11-inch guns. This prompted France to expend twenty-five thousand tons on a new battlecruiser to put the lid on these pesky Germans in case of war. Germany ‘responded’ by sneakily building two more of those 11-inch ships, but making them a teensy bit bigger; three times bigger. Once the French found out, they authorised another battlecruiser to try and match the Germans (who technically ought not to have been able to outmatch the French due to treaty restrictions) and that was when Italy got involved.Bothered that the French construction left their battle-fleet hopelessly outmatched (here we go… it’s like children), Italy’s fascist leader declared his nation’s right to build the first two battleships of the Littorio class; Littorio & Vittorio Veneto. They were fast enough to handle the French battlecruisers, yet tough enough to deal with the British Mediterranean Fleet’s battleships, just in case of a war, you see. No-one’s saying the Fascist powers want a war in 1934, but it pays to be prepared, you know?The Italian move prompted France to use up her remaining tonnage allowance of about twenty-thousand tons, plus a little extra, by giving the go-ahead for construction of an enlarged version of their battlecruiser design, in order to counter the announced 15-inch armament of the Littorio class; this ship became the Richelieu. (Then it all got very silly, as Germany ‘responded’ to the aggressive French build-up by building Bismarck & Tirpitz, causing France to order the Jean Bart, which led Italy to order Impero & Roma, and France to order Gascogne & Clemenceau. The three rivals were ordering new ‘response battleships’ almost before the enemy’s ‘provocation’ ships were even laid down, let alone launched.)As I said earlier; complicated. Worth the recap for those unfamiliar with the back story.The Missions:As hinted at, Vittorio Veneto’s mission was to counter two different classes of capital ship; fast, moderately-armoured French battlecruisers with long-range guns, for which speed & striking range would be the premium characteristics; and slower but heavily-armoured British super-dreadnoughts with very heavy guns, against which protection, weight of broadside and armour penetration were key. So, basically the Italian battleships just needed to incorporate every possible superlative into one package, with no compromise. And they needed to achieve that on thirty-five thousand tons. Impossible. They achieved what they were aiming for, impressively, but they did it on forty thousand tons and kept quiet about that part.Richelieu’s mission was indeed to counter the Vittorio Veneto and her sister; being designed to be as fast, as strong, as tough as Veneto so that the Italian ships would be forced to deploy with her position in mind, thus neutralising their strategic freedom. The French managed to fit their design parameters into the treaty-specified thirty-five thousand ton limit, despite having invalidated the Washington Treaty by building her in excess of their total seventy-thousand ton allowance in the first place.Comparison as built:Guns - Both the Richelieu and Veneto carried 15-inch calibre main guns which, on the whole, had very similar performance characteristics; both could range out to just beyond forty-five thousand yards with muzzle velocities exceeding nine hundred yards per second and had firing cycles of about forty seconds. Whether it was Italian triple turrets or French quadruples didn’t seem to make any difference to firing rate in 1940. The Italian heavy guns had a single advantage; they could pierce thicker armour plate at all ranges, being about fifteen to twenty percent more effective than the French guns. The often-discussed variable quality of Italian 15-inch ammunition might go some way to evening out the performance of the two different guns, but then again, who is to say that Veneto would not be carrying shells of the best quality? We could also talk about the short barrel life of the Italian heavy gun, but as the weapon was certainly good for the duration of a typical surface action we must ask ourselves, was it really the defining issue which it is so often held to be?Armour - Richelieu carried thicker armour plate on her main turret faces than Veneto did; at fifteen nautical miles’ range neither ship could pierce their opponent’s turret faces; at twelve nm both could. In terms of belt armour things were slightly more complicated, as Richelieu had a maximum thickness of thirteen inches, while Vittorio Veneto carried a ‘spaced armour’ system of an eleven inch inner main belt with an outer ‘decapping’ belt which was two-point-eight inches thick. This gave a total armour thickness slightly greater than the French ship’s belt, but the efficiency of de-capping layers is still somewhat debatable to this day. If the Italian armour worked as intended, then Veneto had an advantage in that she could penetrate Richelieu’s belt at a few thousand yards greater than vice-versa. However, this ‘sweet spot’ was within the range where horizontal armour was just as likely to be struck as was the vertical component, and in that department the Italians were at a disadvantage due to their 15-inch gun’s flatter trajectory and the French battleship’s more consistent deck armour thickness. Richelieu’s conning tower was far more heavily armoured than Veneto’s; the reverse of the situation vis a vis their secondary gun turrets. Total weight of armour was 39.2% of Richelieu’s displacement and 36% of Veneto’s.Speed - Both ships were rated for thirty knots and, even given the Italians’ earlier reputation for over-driving cruisers on light displacement during speed trials, the two battleships were well-matched in terms of sea speed.Endurance - Richelieu probably had an edge here but, as both ships were primarily intended to fight in the Mediterranean Sea, the shorter Italian range was of little consequence given the location of their bases.Secondary armaments - Vittorio Veneto had a two-tier medium gun battery, with four triple 6-inch anti-ship turrets and twelve single 3.5-inch high angle guns for anti-aircraft defence. The more stringently-controlled weights of the Richelieu resulted in her being equipped with a dual-purpose secondary battery of three triple 6.1-inch guns. Although disappointing as AA guns, the French secondaries had a very similar performance against medium to light armour as the Italian 6-inch, but boasted a slightly higher rate of fire. However, Veneto’s 6-inch turrets & barbettes were almost twice as heavily armoured as Richelieu’s and would require main battery hits to penetrate them. Despite this, a battleship’s performance was seldom dependent on the durability of its secondary turrets in the 1940s, barring freak critical damage from secondary magazine fires. Overall though, Veneto’s superior AA battery gave her better potential defence from air attack when at sea and a few more heavy quick-firers for use against marauding destroyers at shorter ranges.Fire control - Both battleships were designed and built as daylight combatants, without radar and were reliant on optical direction for ranging and gun laying, using twin-lens rangefinders to obtain good accuracy. Richelieu carried a slightly longer-base main rangefinder than Veneto, but in earlier tests conducted with American and British equipment the base length was found not to be the critical factor. Overall, opinion at the time was that Italian rangefinders were of excellent quality and that this probably overcame the issue of their shorter base length (the distance between the main lenses). Considering all the variables of optics and ballistics involved in laying and firing the main batteries, there was likely very little difference in gunnery performance between the two battleships; certainly no huge advantage was possessed by one or the other.Underwater protection - Vittorio Veneto was built with the innovative Pugliese torpedo defence, consisting of a fluid-filled wing compartment containing a long void cylidrical ‘expansion space’ which was designed to collapse and absorb the shock of a torpedo explosion. Although it “did not perform as effectively as expected”, Veneto still survived her torpedo wound at the Battle of Cape Matapan and was able to steam back to base for repairs. Richelieu incorporated a multi-layered defence of voids, filled spaces and armour bulkheads which was probably a very good system for the day, but which did not prevent her propeller shaft from being damaged by a British aerial torpedo hit while she was at Dakar. All anti-torpedo defence systems were imperfect, but perhaps Veneto’s was more of a technical failure than Richelieu’s?Tactically the two different designs had pros and cons. Richelieu would best have been employed against Veneto at ranges of maybe twelve to fifteen nautical miles, at which range her plunging fire could have best effect while the angles of strike from Italian shells might have afforded her a good measure of protection. Of course, using the forward-facing armament to enable a more ‘head-on’ approach would be difficult to combine with an attempt to hold the range, unless the ship were to constantly manoeuvre, thus frustrating her fire-control team’s efforts somewhat. Long-range battleship gunnery without radar was a formidably hard job to perform with much success, as history showed. By far the majority of capital ship gunnery hits were scored at ranges below eight nautical miles. Still, those longer-range hits were far from impossible…Veneto’s best tactical option was try for the very long range engagement of fifteen to twenty nautical miles, where plunging fire was possible for her (but accuracy was generally very poor). Her sister Littorio did employ very long range fire against the British at the First Battle of Sirte, opening up against a British cruiser force at about thirty-five thousand yards without scoring any hits. Hit rates at ranges over ten nautical miles were generally just a couple of percent of the shots fired, so actually having nine guns against eight could count as an advantage. At more normal battle ranges, it would be less so.Conclusions: Both the Vittorio Veneto and the Richelieu were conceived and built at a time when the thinking behind their tactics was ahead of the technology to cope. They had been designed for long range battles which, in reality, turned out to be little more than coin-flips at best and totally indecisive in most cases. Both very powerful ships for their day, they would have been a very good match for each other. All of the minor technical strengths and weaknesses would have been largely ironed out by the tiny chance of hitting the target at their designed optimum fighting ranges, making comparison of fighting power essentially meaningless.Both ships had flaws; Veneto being too high-performance for her material quality to cope in certain regards and Richelieu being too technically complex to be totally successful at her entry into service.Richelieu was later made into a better battleship, but it took four years for that to happen. Veneto was in service for just over three years and, at the end of that period, was a better battleship herself on a technical level, having been equipped with the perfectly adequate EC-3 ter radar - a set which allowed an Italian scout cruiser to open fire on and sink a tiny MTB in darkness at a five mile range in 1943.There wasn’t a lot to choose between the two ships, as far as I see it. In 1944 I would prefer the Richelieu, but in 1940? I’d probably choose the Vittorio Veneto by a whisker, even if only on the basis of broader main battery disposition (for staying power) and a fractionally heavier broadside.

The challenge in answering this question is that a battleship captain very rarely has the discretion to make a significant maneuver on their own initiative. Battleships rarely operated alone, they usually had other ships with them, and that meant an admiral was along. And if the Admiral was along, they would be the one making the most significant decisions.Willis Lee was the vice admiral in charge of the fleet at the Second Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, he was not the captain of the USS Washington, Glenn Davis was the captain.William Witworth was the Vice Admiral of the fleet (one battleship and nine destroyers) sent into the Ofotfjord (fiord which leads to Narvik) which set up the Second Naval Battle of Narvik. He was on HMS Warspite but was not the captain. The captain was Victor Crutchley. They took a battleship (and destroyers) into a narrow fiord controlled by the enemy and which was known to have enemy destroyers and submarines… and destroyed them and more.Having said that here are some interesting maneuvers made by battleship captains …During the Battle of the Denmark Straits, Admiral Admiral Lütjens on Bismarck, and commanding both Bismarck and Prinz Eugen, was reluctant to have Bismarck open fire as HMS Hood and Prince of Wales rapidly closed the range while firing with their forward guns. Admiral Lütjens had orders to avoid engaging Royal Navy capital ships, but could not turn away from Hood and Prince of Wales as he would quickly have run into the Greenland ice sheet.Hood opened fire at 5:52AM with Prince of Wales joining. Admiral Lütjens did not give his permission to open fire despite being asked repeatedly, and the captain, Kapitän zur See Ernst Lindemann, took matters in his hands and gave his gunnery officer permission to open fire. Bismarck opened fire at 5:55AM. She may have already taken a hit from Prince of Wales by this time.About 6:00 AM Bismarck’s 5th salvo scored the fatal hit on Hood.During a peacetime USN “Fleet Problem” exercise between the wars, the USS Nevada was deemed by umpires to have taken hits which damaged her and slowed her. The conventional doctrine at the time was to pull out of the battle line and turn to the disengaged side. Nevada’s captain chose to turn towards the opposing force (the engaged side). He was able to close to nearly point blank range and was deemed to have scored many hits on the opposing battle line, while Nevada was also taking more “hits”. This move was studied and highlighted after the Fleet Problem concluded, and probably would have become part of doctrine and would have been used if there had been a classic battle line battle in the Pacific during WWII.