"Your 5 favorite classes of WW2 warships" Topic

List your 5 favorite WW2 warship classes.
Mine:
1). Alaska heavy cruiser
2). Atlanta light cruiser
3). Iowa battleship
4). Cleveland light cruiser
5). Dido light cruiser

1) German E-boats
2) USS Enterprise
3) MHS Warspite
4) USS Colorado
5) USS Houston

1. South Dakota Fast battleships. Best 35000 ton BBs.
2. Essex class Carriers. well built carriers, and very capable/adaptable.
3. Fletcher class Destroyers.
4. Fubuki Destroyers. The first modern Destroyers when built.
5. Takao class Japanese Heavy cruisers. Present at Savo Island. Good hard fighting heavy cruisers/

God Bless you.

Fletcher Class DD
USS Enterprise
Queen Elizabeth Class BB (HMS Warspite)
PT Boats
Scharnhorst/Gneisenau BC

1. Tribals
2. Didos
3. QE/Warspite
4. Renown
5. D Class light

Motor patrol boats, vas, e-boats, mob
DE
Corvettes, frigate
Minelayer, sweeper or aux.ships
The small ships that fought almost on a daily basis.

Iowa
Fletcher
Fantasque
Alaska
Dido

Fuso/Yamashiro
Dunkerque/Strasbourg
Tashkent
Bolzano
Wichita

I have to admit a fondness for smaller more versatile ships.
Even more surprisingly, a number of IJN classes are there.
There are a lot of classes that I like that in my opinion were an extreme effort to build or took up an incredible amount of resources. The Fletchers, Tribals , Gearings and Z classes are good examples.

1. River class frigates.
Especially the ships with the twin 4' in forward turret. Even the US version the Tacoma class. Very pretty lines and distinct latice on either side of the bridge. They probably are the major unsung workhorse for the Atlantic victory. They played an equally large and unkonown part in the Pacific for the USN. Built in the UK, Canada and Australia, the US building programby civilian yards in the Great Lakes was probably unprecedented.

2. the US DE Program or the Captain class frigates.
For scope of building and variation in powerplants, these were the Sherman tank of the naval world. If you can make a suitable propulsion unit, we' build it. Again for unsung use and nnumbers, I give this equal footing with the River class frigates.

3. IJN Kagero or Yugumo class.
The mid and late war Fubuki or Special classes.
Probably usurped in ability by the Amatsuzki's by late war but still one of the most potent designs. Clean lines and as functional to the end as the Specials were when they started.

4. The IJN Matsu class destroyer.
Utilitarian and function rule the design with room for growth and stretch ability for the future, clean lines and compromise. It reminds me a lot of what the Spruance classs was for the USN in the early eighties. While most would say under armed, and I would agree, the simplicity and ability to build in number was the issue by the time they came out. No walk in the park for any contemporary destroyer to take on.

5. The IJN Type C and Type D Escort.
Cheap, nasty and plentiful.
Not many know about these.
Combine the depth charge equivalent of a '40 Flower corvette and the firepower of an A-I class destroyer in three 4.7' guns with a 18-19 knot DE speed.
On top of all that, they were engined by both diesel-electric turbines as well as fuel oil. A few were even set up for coal or even wood burning!
A nasty armament, their undoing tended to be the fact they were a generation or two behind in radar and sonar as well as tending to be commanded by less aggressive captains.

An unheralded 6th place would go to the Italian Gabbiano class escorts, not just for the utilitarianism, but for innovation. . A lot of thought went into that that no other navy did. Just like the submarines it hunted, it had electric only motors for silent creeping.

Are we talking looks or performance? I mean the Italian Giussano class cruisers or Bismark/Tirpitz look great but were poor performers.

Looks
Dunkerque
Condottieri class (All five groups)
Hood
Town Class Cruisers
S to Z class Destroyers

Performance
Fletcher Class DD
Essex class CV
Town class Cruisers
Queen Elizabeth class
Flower Class Corvettes/Kagero Class DD (Couldn't choose sorry.)

Fatman

Tribal Class Destroyers
Flower Class Corvettes
Fairmile MTB and MGB's
King George V Class Battleship
Iowa Class Battleship

Kongo Class Fast Battleships
South Dakota Class Fastball Battleships
Fletcher Class Destroyers
Towne Class Cruisers
Essex Class Carriers

I don't know the non-European fleets very well so my list will be biased to start with. Here goes anyway.

In no particular order:

Southampton class cruisers
Zara class cruisers
Fairmile "D" MGBs
Atlanta class cruisers
J & K class destroyers

Brooklyn class CL
Wichita CA
Fletcher class DD
Dunkerque/Strasbourg BC
Sendai class CL (probably cause it was the first 1/1200 model I scratch built)

1940 class German destroyers

HMS Gazelle class minesweepers (My Dad served on her)

Bismarck

Le Fantasque French destroyer

Takao (Japanese)

1. Yamashiro/Fuso
2. Clemson Class DD
3. Sendai Class CL
4. Omaha Class CL
5. Kent class CA

1. Fletcher
2. Tribal
3. Iowa
4. Essex
5. Flower

Big and little. 4 of these , IMO, did the lion's share of work in the war.

1) Gato-class SS (and cousins Balao and Tench classes). My 'grandfathers' did a lot of the heavy lifting in the war in the Pacific in those boats. 77 Gato-class built, 120 Balao-class built, and 'only' 29 Tench-class built (51 hulls canceled at the end of the war, so total planned Tench production was 80 hulls!). There are even a couple Tench-class still in service (in Taiwan)!

2) Japanese heavy cruisers, guess I will start with the Takao-class (though I'm including Mogami and Tone). Long Lance torpedoes for the win!

3) Kitakami-class CL (or Destroyer Leader, take your pick). If you thought 12x Long Lances was bad news, the Kitakami had 40! Playing Seapower, nothing like calling away 'Torpedoes in the Water!' putting down 20 pipe-cleaners as torpedo wakes, and watching everyone at the table just kinda turn pale (or a little green).

4) Independence-class CVL. Fast enough to keep up with the fleet, and available NOW. Yeah, they're small and poorly protected. But the Essex-class can't be built fast enough, and we're down to three carriers!

5) Casablanca-class CVL. Used mostly to support the various amphibious assaults, freeing the CVLs and CVs to go fight other ships instead. Plus, we built 50 of them in 3 years!