The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Details, schmetails, they all look alike to you. To my eye, the South Dakotas look very different, while the North Carolinas and Iowas look similar to each other. I think that the North Carolinas were the most beautiful battleships ever built.

If I were Bull Halsey, for one thing, I would try not to run my fleet through typhoons twice in the same summer. But, for another thing, I would want an advantage in numbers if it came down to a surface action against Yamato or Musashi. I think I'd want a night action, where my radar gunnery would have an advantage.

Those 18.1"/45 guns were not to be sneezed at, but they weren't quite as powerful as one might expect. They fired a lighter shell than the 18" guns that the Brits had on their two Courageous-class "large light cruisers" in WWI. They had an advantage over the 16"/50 guns on the Iowas, but not much of one.

Interesting article here.

Since there's no softball thread, I'll post the softball results here.

OU beat Texas 5-1 in the Big 12 tournament championship game last night. Texas finished 1st in the regular season, OU 2nd. Texas was ranked #1 nationally, oSu 2nd, Tennessee 3rd, and OU 4th. All of those teams except OU lost yesterday. It would seem that OU and Texas will be seeded 1st and 2nd for the NCAA Tournament, but--I think--probably not in that order.

That was OU's 9th Big 12 tournament championship in the 22 years that it was held. Texas is next with 4. Kansas and Oklahoma State have each won once. Of former teams, Nebraska had 3, Missouri had 2, and Texas A&M had 1. The 2019 tournament was not completed due to rain.

In 3 of Texas' wins, Cat Osterman was the MOP. Jennifer Lizama of Nebraska won it twice, once when the Huskers did not win the championship. Nobody else has won it more than once and nobody but Lizama has won it when her team did not win the championship.

It makes some sense to me, the cruisers and BBs would have planes and crews designed specifically for scouting, not attack or air to air.  I think the US usually had enough carrier planes to scout, and the Dauntlesses would carry a 500 pounder when scouting often as not.

So, the Japanese could devote their carrier air groups solely to attack (and some defense) without wasting some planes on scouting.

It's a bit amusing to think the early concept of a carrier was to scout for the main battle fleet.