The Heaviest Armed Ship of WWII

Ajouté : 2026-05-31

[00:00:05]Hi, I'm Ryan Szimanski, curator for Battleship New Jersey Museum and Memorial.

[00:00:09]During World War II, battleships transitioned from being the capital ships of the fleet to primarily providing shore bombardment support and escorts for other ships.

[00:00:23]However, their massive size and the long range of their guns mean that they can provide some things other ships can't, but it also hinders them in being able to provide some types of critical support.

[00:00:38]For example, if you've got a target that is a dozen miles inland and behind another obstacle, a battleship can lob shells over that and strike that target.

[00:00:51]But, if you've got beach defenses that are relatively point and shoot, but you kind of have to be close enough to see them and engage them, especially when your own troops are on the beach and you don't want to endanger them significantly, you need a much smaller, shallower drafted ship. One of the things that amazes me about World War II, especially compared to today, is just how many types of ships that didn't exist before the war started get mass produced and pumped out to fit very specific roles.

[00:01:27]And how these types of ships hang around for years, and and the names might change and and the iterations might change, but that like the jobs that they're fulfilling hang around for years, but don't really exist as such today in the modern navy. It really makes me think that if we get into another naval war with amphibious operations and all the other aspects of the Pacific War, that we will find ourselves very much doing the same thing and starting from scratch and building all new types of vessels.

[00:02:04]One of those types of vessels was the landing craft support large.

[00:02:11]These ships have been referred to as the most heavily gun armed ship ton for ton.

[00:02:20]When we visited the San Francisco Bay Area the other month, we got a little bit of behind the scenes access to visit LCSL-3102, the only one of these landing craft support vessels that has been preserved as a museum ship. And she's not currently open to the public, but like I said, they were willing to let us get on board. We we got to take some pictures, do some B-roll, and and so today it's my pleasure to talk about that ship and that type of ship.

[00:02:53]They are working on getting her permanently opened to the public, and you should always keep an eye on their website to see when they're going to be open next.

[00:03:03]Built in a single month from January to February of 1945, the 102 was um built to fulfill a very specific role.

[00:03:14]She had heavy armament for her size, a 3-in deck gun at the bow, a twin 40-mm at both the bow and the stern, 4 20-mm guns, and a bunch of early rockets. With a draft of less than 6 ft, a length of 158 ft, and a displacement that maxed out below 400 tons, these vessels could pull in extremely close to shore and provide incredibly direct shore fire support. Now, especially during landings, this is critical because those initial troops that hit the beach don't have any sort of support weaponry with them. They don't have artillery, they they don't necessarily have heavier light machine guns or mortars or anything like that set up. You've essentially got a bunch of riflemen charging enemies fixed in placements.

[00:04:08]So, by pulling these ships close in, they can provide that kind of direct support while your larger ships offshore, even your destroyers are going to be significantly far away and lobbing shells, much less your battleships with 38-ft drafts like the Iowa class, are going to be significantly further away providing support and covering against maybe enemy formations that are coming in towards the beach and and things like that.

[00:04:37]Also, these landing craft support were able to generate smoke screens, and this was used heavily by the US during the Okinawa campaign in particular. Smoke screens made it both more difficult for the enemy to shoot at our troops, at our ships, and for kamikazes to hit our ships. And so you see the various invasion beaches and the various anchorages by the US fleet putting on smoke screens pretty frequently throughout that campaign.

[00:05:08]Other interesting features of 102, she had a crew of about 78 sailors, which is roughly the same as a World War submarine, or roughly the number of men it takes to man a single 16-in turret on the battleship.

[00:05:22]She had um 10-lb STS plate as armor, which is basically 1/4-in steel, which is fine for stopping rifle and and light machine gun rounds, but not much protection against anything beyond that, except shrapnel from near misses.

[00:05:40]And these ships are very similar to the invasion troops in that they're getting very close to the beach. They are taking small arms fire, and they're taking casualties when they do that. After the invasion beaches were secured, these LCSs were often used as radar pickets and set up all around the islands that the US was invading, and you see LCSs like this supporting USS Laffey famously when she's attacked by kamikazes, and doing other roles like that. Their heavy batteries made them excellent anti-aircraft support, and they can get really close to other larger vessels and just supplement their anti-aircraft armament.

[00:06:23]This basic type of ship stays in service with the navy through at least the Vietnam War, where you see a lot of the brown water navy ships, the monitors and things like that, employing very similar rationale, small, shallow drafted coastal vessels that can provide that direct artillery and machine gun support to troops that are operating near littoral zones. Now, interestingly, even though they share the acronym LCS with the modern navy LCSs, which in the modern navy means littoral combat ship as opposed to landing craft support, the modern day LCSs don't really provide the same sort of support for for invasion beaches and things like that. And there isn't really a modern analog to these types of landing craft.

[00:07:17]But, the US Navy has basically divested itself of all sorts of naval gunfire support in that they don't have battleships anymore, the ships that were close supposed to replace them, the Zumwalt class, didn't get a gun system. The ships that were supposed to replace them, the Zumwalt class, didn't get shells for their gun system and are now going through an expensive process of having their guns removed.

[00:07:43]And smaller ships like these just don't exist.

[00:07:48]The littoral combat ships have gone in the complete opposite direction in that they have a very small amount of firepower per ton compared to 102 and her sister ships, which have perhaps the largest amount of firepower per ton. I've heard it argued that PT boats were the most armed per ton vessel in the navy, thanks in large part to their torpedoes.

[00:08:15]I would argue I would argue that these LCSLs are the most heavily gun armed ships per ton. So, what do you think?

[00:08:27]Does the modern navy need close support vessels like this?

[00:08:31]Do they need really heavily gun armed ships, or has their divesting of gun armed ships been a a reasonable thing? Do you think that ships like these don't need to be maintained in peacetime because they can be built quickly in wartime? Or do you think we should keep training with these types of vessels in peacetime? Let us know in the comment section down below.

[00:08:52]Battleship New Jersey receives operating support from the New Jersey Department of State, as well as from a number of other businesses and private individuals like yourselves. We really appreciate your support. There's a link in the description below for ways you can support the LCSL-3102 and the organization that's preserving her.

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