So where did all the battleships come from?

[Jurrasic]

One of the things I found interesting in both 3.33 and most especially 3.0+1.0 is the insane amount of military ships there are, especially battleships. There are apparently so many battleships that they can be simply plated with the type of armour used to hold off the blast of Ramiel in 1.11 and used as throwaway shields for the Paris assault team? Why in the world didn't they use oil tankers instead of valuable military assets? They even used battleships as throw-away missiles!! Where in the world did such an abundance of capital ships come from that they are so undervalued?? Even the mothballed battlefield fleets laid up in storage since WW2 of the U.S., Russia and the U.K. combined couldn't equal the number of battleships seen and thrown away like pop-cans!

Why would you take the most powerful gun-assets of this time and waste them this way? If single shots from Mari's machine-guns were popping Mark 4 flyers, surely 16inch shells from a battleship would do the same? Much slower rate of fire of course but with how many the Wunder was floating around, surely it would have been more tactically useful to use huge tankers or aircraft carriers as shield-hulls and let the battleships battle, no?

It's minor pickings in a fictional universe of course, but even if an explanation dosen't make any rational sense, I'd at least like an explanation of where all the damn battleships came from and why they were used the way they were instead of more useless ships.

Anyone see something I didn't as to why and how, or have a practical theory of how and why?

[Semi-Evolved]

The guns on an Iowa-class are much too slow to be particularly useful in the massed-enemy battles in 3+1. Each gun (and they have 9 across the three turrets) takes roughly 30 seconds to reload, and their tracking / elevation rates are also not particularly quick - these are 80 year old weapons even today, let alone in Eva's timeline. Compared against the main guns on the Wunder or Mari's and Asuka's gattling guns, they simply lack the stopping power to hold off the swarms of enemies we see in those battles.

[Jurrasic]

The guns on an Iowa-class are much too slow to be particularly useful in the massed-enemy battles in 3+1. Each gun (and they have 9 across the three turrets) takes roughly 30 seconds to reload, and their tracking / elevation rates are also not particularly quick - these are 80 year old weapons even today, let alone in Eva's timeline. Compared against the main guns on the Wunder or Mari's and Asuka's gattling guns, they simply lack the stopping power to hold off the swarms of enemies we see in those battles.

True, the mk4's were a bad example, but how about the mk44 power-generating Evas feeding the positron cannon? They clearly have no AT field since the sweeping tentacles of the mk4444 were able to flip them all on their heads, and are as gigantic and slow moving a target as a battleship turret could ever ask for. A salvo of 9 16inch AP and HE shells from each of the rotating battleships should tear them all apart, even if they couldn't hit the shielded mk4444.

And even if not practical, It still seems insanely wasteful to use potentially valuable warships instead of civilian tankers and transports for bolting armour onto to use as a shield.

[Semi-Evolved]

The guns on an Iowa-class are much too slow to be particularly useful in the massed-enemy battles in 3+1. Each gun (and they have 9 across the three turrets) takes roughly 30 seconds to reload, and their tracking / elevation rates are also not particularly quick - these are 80 year old weapons even today, let alone in Eva's timeline. Compared against the main guns on the Wunder or Mari's and Asuka's gattling guns, they simply lack the stopping power to hold off the swarms of enemies we see in those battles.

True, the mk4's were a bad example, but how about the mk44 power-generating Evas feeding the positron cannon? They clearly have no AT field since the sweeping tentacles of the mk4444 were able to flip them all on their heads, and are as gigantic and slow moving a target as a battleship turret could ever ask for. A salvo of 9 16inch AP and HE shells from each of the rotating battleships should tear them all apart, even if they couldn't hit the shielded mk4444.

And even if not practical, It still seems insanely wasteful to use potentially valuable warships instead of civilian tankers and transports for bolting armour onto to use as a shield.

It's probably fair to say that Wille has used the ships that are available for the needs that they had, and particularly with the personnel that they had available. There's simply no global civilisation left to keep tankers/freighters/etc operational, so if you're going to keep anything floating about, you pick military vessels.

In any case, if we're trying to concoct a logical reason as to why they're not used as warships in the story, then crewing is the simplest - Iowas need upwards of 70+ crew per turret, let alone the support crew to keep them powered, etc. Standard complement of an Iowa in their most-modernised form in the 1980s was over 1800, and I'll note that many of the on-screen vessels actually still seemed to be in original 40s form.

In line with that, we pretty consistently see any legacy military hardware used solely as projectiles and weapons - such as the mixed fleet of destroyers rigged as guided missiles, the Ford-class carriers used as Evangelion-sky-surfboards, and the aforemented Iowa-class ablative shields. There simply aren't the people around with the required training or skills to use any of this legacy hardware as intended, particularly in the face of the wildly more powerful and versatile Evangelions and Wunder.

[Jurrasic]

It's probably fair to say that Wille has used the ships that are available for the needs that they had, and particularly with the personnel that they had available. There's simply no global civilisation left to keep tankers/freighters/etc operational, so if you're going to keep anything floating about, you pick military vessels.

In any case, if we're trying to concoct a logical reason as to why they're not used as warships in the story, then crewing is the simplest - Iowas need upwards of 70+ crew per turret, let alone the support crew to keep them powered, etc. Standard complement of an Iowa in their most-modernised form in the 1980s was over 1800, and I'll note that many of the on-screen vessels actually still seemed to be in original 40s form.

In line with that, we pretty consistently see any legacy military hardware used solely as projectiles and weapons - such as the mixed fleet of destroyers rigged as guided missiles, the Ford-class carriers used as Evangelion-sky-surfboards, and the aforemented Iowa-class ablative shields. There simply aren't the people around with the required training or skills to use any of this legacy hardware as intended, particularly in the face of the wildly more powerful and versatile Evangelions and Wunder.

Good answer, I can go with that.

[nerv bae]

Whose five ships are shown in the bottom of this frame?



This frame shows the impact of Wunder's N1 rocket fleet on Neo-NERV HQ over the South Pole. I don't think these ships are Neo-NERV's, because we don't see them when HQ is towing the black moon south. And I don't think they are Wille's either.

Are these ships of the Katsuragi Expedition, lost during second impact three decades earlier?

[TMBounty_Hunter]

Those being from the Katsuragi Expedition seems like a great guess.

On the right it looks like Japan's old and new Shirase icebreakers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... _(AGB-5003)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... _(AGB-5002)

The smallest one might be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... _(AGB-5001)

The center one is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_sh ... iy_Gagarin
The left one is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_co ... hip_SSV-33


All science ships

[nerv bae]

Nice job on ship identification! Did we already know that the Katsuragi Expedition had three icebreakers and two soviet communication ships? Searching the forums doesn't yield much for me (except that the Ural II, different from the Ural I linked above, was at the North Pole's Bethany Base in 2.0). I would bump a Second Impact / Katsuragi Expedition thread in this subforum with this information but I can't find one.

[DantesInferno]

Yeah, these ships caught my attention since the first time I saw the movie. I thought they might be from Nerv, having just come out of the HQ for some unspecified purpose.

But they do not look like battleships at all (the visual contrast with Wille's ones is stark), rather quite civilian, so "Katsuragi expedition" ticks all boxes.

The fact that the ships are intact indicates that Second Impact was just a massive L-field release strong enough to purify the oceans, but didn't have much destructive force in the physical sense.

I guess they're floating in the air just like everything else nearby is; the strong L field present at the south pole has the same antigrav effect seen outside village 3. This explains how Eva-08 can make the "jump" from the doomed Nerv HQ back into the Wunder, and why the Wunder stays "afloat" after having lost its main engine.

[nerv bae]

The fact that the ships are intact indicates that Second Impact was just a massive L-field release strong enough to purify the oceans, but didn't have much destructive force in the physical sense.

This is supported by Misato's flashback in 2.0, where we see her hurried into an emergency capsule by Dr. Katsuragi just before he's vaporized. This establishes that the Impact is fatal to exposed people but survivable by capsules, ships, etc.

[Konja7]

The fact that the ships are intact indicates that Second Impact was just a massive L-field release strong enough to purify the oceans, but didn't have much destructive force in the physical sense.

In 1.0, it's mentioned the Second Impact killed half of humanity. So, it still has destructive power to kill people (although Misato could be protected in a capsule).

In fact, Misato's original fear was that the Third Impact will kill the remaining half. I guess this doesn't happened because the Third Impact was stopped.

[Jinroh]

This is supported by Misato's flashback in 2.0, where we see her hurried into an emergency capsule by Dr. Katsuragi just before he's vaporized. This establishes that the Impact is fatal to exposed people but survivable by capsules, ships, etc.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the underworld beyond the gate of hell is in another dimension, similar to the chamber of guf. They go down dozens, if not hundreds of kilometers down there, it’s not a natural space.

If second impact happened on the surface of the earth, it might not have had any impact down there, hence why the ships are intact.

[DantesInferno]

In 1.0, it's mentioned the Second Impact killed half of humanity. So, it still has destructive power to kill people (although Misato could be protected in a capsule).

In fact, Misato's original fear was that the Third Impact will kill the remaining half. I guess this doesn't happened because the Third Impact was stopped.

By destructive I meant "destroy objects by sheer physical force", like an explosion. Of course people nearby would be "killed" by virtue of losing their AT Field, and the final death toll is likely indirect (e.g. food shortages due to most sea life being lost). Perhaps there were Tsunamis too like in NGE, but nothing string enough to damage the Katsuragi expedition ships apparently.

[Konja7]

By destructive I meant "destroy objects by sheer physical force", like an explosion. Of course people nearby would be "killed" by virtue of losing their AT Field, and the final death toll is likely indirect (e.g. food shortages due to most sea life being lost). Perhaps there were Tsunamis too like in NGE, but nothing string enough to damage the Katsuragi expedition ships apparently.

In NGE, the Second Impact indirectly caused the deaths due to the Tsunamis (and other consequences).

However, in Rebuild, it's implied the death of half of humanity was directly caused by the Second Impact.

Misato: Fifteen years ago, half of humanity died in the Second Impact. If the Angels cause a Third Impact now, humanity will die out. No one will survive.

[MarqFJA87]

I'm assuming that the obvious answer of "Anno and co. probably used battleships simply for the cool factor, just like how they used Judeo-Christian symbolism mainly because they looked cool and put little to no thought about deeper implications" isn't what you're looking for? Anno did go on record to say that he loves the Yamato-class battleships the most among the Japanese warships of WW2.

[nerv bae]

Thought it would be fun to review 3.0 and 3+1 to look closely at what Wille does with legacy warships.

They all launch alongside the Wunder without any apparent ablative shielding in 3.0:

SPOILER: Show

They are presumably crewed at this point and are used to fire on Rei Q's Mark.09:

SPOILER: Show

This fire from the legacy warships is utterly ineffectual, but a moment later Mari's Eva 08 shoots off Mark.09's head with an (Eva-sized) pistol. Maybe Wille drew some lessons from this?

In 3+1's Paris engagement, Wille has adopted ablative shielding:

SPOILER: Show

And has apparently left all the fire-capable legacy warships somewhere else, as they're not near the ground nor up near the Wunder:

SPOILER: Show

We can infer that after 3.0's Mark.09 engagement, Wille decided that legacy warship fires just aren't very useful.

[DantesInferno]

In NGE, the Second Impact indirectly caused the deaths due to the Tsunamis (and other consequences).

However, in Rebuild, it's implied the death of half of humanity was directly caused by the Second Impact.

Misato: Fifteen years ago, half of humanity died in the Second Impact. If the Angels cause a Third Impact now, humanity will die out. No one will survive.

IIRC, She says:

１５年前、セカンドインパクトで、人類の半分は失われた

(emphasis mine)
(damn, I've watched the rebuilds too many times!)

The use of で translates as "by means of (Second Impact)". I don't think it can be inferred from this dialog alone whether 2I itself killed half of humanity directly or inidirectly. It would be too convoluted for Misato to clarify in this situation, saying something as "directly or indirectly, at the end of the day half of humanity was lost because of 2I".

In any case, the point I wanted to make stands: Whatever the detailed nature of 2I, it was mainly an L-field phenomenon (not an explosion like in NGE), judging by how the ships are intact. I don't think there's any mention in NTE about the antarctic ice melting/Antarctica being vaporized, or the axis of the Earth being tilted. Whether Japan is thrown into a "year-round summer" as in the TV show, I'm not sure...