# What was the most powerful battleship in a straight duel, May 1941?



## Freebird (Feb 12, 2008)

Has anyone seen the History channel programs Hunt for the Bismarck?

The show was on today from A&E's "dogfights" series, great animation, especially the Swordfish attack sequences. However.... There are several obvious errors that seem to keep being repeated about the Bismarck

Hunt for the Bismarck

Hunt for the Bismarck DVD

I have also seen "Sink the Bismarck"

Sink the Bismarck + Sink the Bismarck DVD Set

On their blurb about the DVD, they make the same common erroneous claims about Bismarck.  

1.) Largest Battleship ever built - Wrong
2.) Most deadly Battleship ever built - Wrong
3.) Biggest guns on a battleship - Wrong
4.) Most "powerful" Battleship at that time - also wrong IMO

So I will see what the opinions are, what is the most powerful battleship? ie. If you were in a battleship for a *straight-out duel*, in which *speed is not a factor*, which one would you choose? {both ships are steaming toward each other, intent on mayhem.}

The AA armament is also not a factor, as in 1941 no battleship's AA was proved very effective without fighter CAP: the Bismarck couldn't shoot down *any* of the attacking Swordfish, the Prince of Wales Repulse only shot down 4 out of 85 attacking Betty/Nell bombers.

I would note that in the final battle, the Bismarck had a damaged rudder was leaking fuel, but her hull was intact, all of her guns equipment were functional. However the supposedly "Most Powerful, Deadly Battleship" Bismarck concentrated her fire on HMS Rodney {Nelson class} but was unable to do *any* significant damage to the British ship.

Sorry folks, Iowa Yamato are not completed in May 1941....  

Stats:

Bismarck 8 x 15" guns, 10.6" - 12.6" armour belt, 3.1 - 4.7" deck armour

HMS Nelson 9 x 16" guns, 13" - 14" armour belt, 5" - 6.75" deck armour

N. Carolina 9 x 16" guns, 7" - 12" armour belt, 4.5" - 5.5" deck armour

Nagato 8 x 16" guns, 7" - 12" armour belt, 4" - 6" deck armour

Littorio 9 x 16" guns, 13.8" armour belt, 3.5" - 6.4" deck armour

Richelieu 8 x 15" guns, 13.6" armour belt, 5.9" - 6.7" deck armour


One other important point, the placement of the main guns.

The Bismarck had 4 twin 15" gun turrets, Nagato 4 twin 16" guns, two forward two aft. 

N. Carolina Littorio had 3 triple 16" gun turrets, two forward, one aft.

French British Battleships had all main guns on the foredeck, the Richelieu with 2 quadruple 15" turrets, the HMS Nelson with 3 triple 16" gun turrets, the middle one superfiring over the other two. {This meant that Nelson could fire all guns at any ship in the forward arc, unless it was within 5' deg. of centerline.} When approaching Bismarck, HMS Rodney could fire all 9 main guns, while Bismarck could reply with only 4 of 8 main guns.


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## Freebird (Feb 12, 2008)

Good excuse to post some photos! 

Pictured: HMS Nelson, IJN Nagato, USS North Carolina, Richelieu

Also please note on my diagram above "Nagato" has the same firing arc's as Bismarck, with 2 twin 16" turrets forward, 2 twin 16" turrets aft.


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## Lucky13 (Feb 12, 2008)

Good question freebird....didn't Bismarck have the superior targeting system?

Of all the naval pics I have ever seen these has to be two of my favorites... Would love to see the faces of people if they saw these steaming into Pearl Harbor today, eh?





Bismarck....she look bl**dy massive...


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## Lucky13 (Feb 12, 2008)

Another couple of good ones.....again, people, battleships, today, steaming, Pearl Harbor, faces....long...





The three leading ships are (in no particular order) Colorado (BB-45), Maryland (BB-46), and West Virginia (BB-48), followed by Tennessee (BB-43) and three older battleships.
Photograph taken from USS California (BB-44).






Photographed from USS Natoma Bay (CVE-62), shortly after the conclusion of the Gilberts Campaign.
The three battleships, in an anchorage protected by anti-torpedo nets, are (from left to right):
USS Idaho (BB-42);
USS New Mexico (BB-40); and
USS Mississippi (BB-41).


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## comiso90 (Feb 12, 2008)

interesting comparison:

Battleship Comparison

Although the nimrod rates the Bismark as having only average fire control
.


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## ccheese (Feb 12, 2008)

Gotta go with the North Carolina. I think, overall, she was 'baaaaddder"

Charles

Reactions: Like Like:
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## ToughOmbre (Feb 12, 2008)

I agree Charles. North Carolina's fire control would give her the advantage, although head to head the Bismarck would give her a good fight.

And the two succeeding American BB classes, South Dakota and Iowa, established a true "Murderer's Row".

TO


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 12, 2008)

I have to go with the Bismarck. I dont think she was the "most powerful" or the "biggest" or anything like that. I just think that at the time she had the best combination of armour, fire power, and fire control, etc...

Now having said that I am not an expert on Naval Warfare or ships or anthing like that.

I think Delycros is the man to talk to here. He seems to have a good grasp of WW2 ships.


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## Lucky13 (Feb 12, 2008)

I enjoy talking about the ships just as much as anything else WWII...great threads...


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## Njaco (Feb 12, 2008)

Lucky, you beat me to it - I went Bismarck because of all the other attributes, I believe her fire control was superior. But the others had early radar, at least in HMS.

I'm not well versed in ships.


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## Lucky13 (Feb 12, 2008)

Same here not as much as I'd like to....


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## Freebird (Feb 12, 2008)

Njaco said:


> Lucky, you beat me to it - I went Bismarck because of all the other attributes, I believe her fire control was superior. But the others had early radar, at least in HMS.
> 
> I'm not well versed in ships.



The German BB fire control system did not perform very well in practice, although it's hard to judge the fire control with Bismarck class, there were only 2 engagements (1 vs. Hood P of W, 2nd vs Rodney KGV) Tirpitz never had a ship vs ship encounter. However in the battle vs Rodney the Bismarck had trouble hitting the target, while Rodney was quickly ably to zero in on the German BB.


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## Glider (Feb 12, 2008)

I went for the Nelson as the best in 1941. At the end of the day in a straight fight, you cannot beat the thickest armour, biggest gun and a FC Radar that was probably the best of its time.
Also its AA suite was also ahead of most equalled possibly only by the Bismark.


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## delcyros (Feb 12, 2008)

freebird said:


> The German BB fire control system did not perform very well in practice, although it's hard to judge the fire control with Bismarck class, there were only 2 engagements (1 vs. Hood P of W, 2nd vs Rodney KGV) Tirpitz never had a ship vs ship encounter. However in the battle vs Rodney the Bismarck had trouble hitting the target, while Rodney was quickly ably to zero in on the German BB.



I disagree. It´s not Tirpitz fault that it didn´t had seen major surface combat (as most ww2 BB´s). HMS Duke of York and USS Washington were ordered to return as soon as Tirpitz left it´s harbour, leaving PQ-17 doomed. If firecontroll suites are Your concern, include the sets of Scharnhorst Gneisenau, both used an earlier mark which was later upgraded to Bismarcks main firecontrol standart with respect to computing. These sets had plenty of action in ww2 and worked as fine as one could hope to. Not mentioning that Scharnhorst still holds the title for the longest gunfire hit on a moving target. Bismarck´s performance at Danmark street against two targets which changed courses repeatedly from platforms which evaded torpedoe tracks on their own was remarkable. With ww2 FC You cannot expect to land hits even from a perfect firing solution. The closest You can come with is straddling the target due to salvo dispersion issues. Sometimes, Your straddle will end up in a hit, that´s it, statistically spoken. Bismarck achieved straddles against Norfolk, Hood, Prince of Wales, later agains against Prince of Wales, some destroyers (by night), Rodney and KGV. I do not need to stress what it means to achieve firing solutions at heavy sea by an exhousted crew from a ship which turns unpredictibly to one side or the other. That´s exact Bismarck´s conditions at her final battle.
Compare the "quickly" zeroing in of Rodney (at clear weather but heavy sea) against the 6-8 kts fast Bismarck with that of Bismarck against the 28+ Kts fast Hood (at calm sea). Rodney opened 09:47 and scored her first straddle at 09:55, the first hit at 09:59, a full 12 minutes later. Bismarck opened at 05:55 and scored her first straddle, resulting in a hit at 05:57 on Hood. If You think this was lucky use the target change to HMS Prince of Wales. Bismarck opened 06:01 on PoW and scored her first straddle at 06:02, resulting in a hit. If this qualifies for weak performance in practice, I cannot help You.
There is only one parallel performance in BB shooting. The well laid out trap at Surigao-street against Yamashiro under superimposed, perfect environmental and tactical conditions (Fuso was by this time crippled by torpedoes, even if the remains of the broken hull remained afloat for some time).

A straight duel by may 41? By this time none of the new US BB´s nor Yamato nor the french BB´s are ready. The best contender is IMHO Bismarck in may 1941.


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## Freebird (Feb 12, 2008)

delcyros said:


> I disagree. It´s not Tirpitz fault that it didn´t had seen major surface combat (as most ww2 BB´s).
> 
> A straight duel by may 41? *By this time none of the new US BB´s nor Yamato nor the french BB´s are ready.* The best contender is IMHO Bismarck in may 1941.



I did already state that the Yamato Iowa's were not in service May 1941. The North Carolina was commissioned in April 1941, the Richelieu was 95% complete before escaping from France in June 1940, so it could have been ready in May 1941, I don't have exact information on the damage it suffered in the British attack or if any repairs were made. If you consider "ready" to be after the "working up" cruise the N. Carolina is in about the same situation as the Prince of Wales in May 1941, ready but with a crew still in need of practice on the new ship.

 I don't count it against Tirpitz.  

I'm not claiming that the Bismarck's fire control was "faulty", only that it was comparable to the British ships. Obviously a ship's crew that has had many years of practice plays a huge part in this. The situation was completely different in the 2 engagements, the first (in calm seas) resulted in both sides scoring hits, with significant damage to the German BB, some damage to the POW and one (catastrophic!) hit on the Hood. The german ships also had the advantage of superior position (crossing the "T" if you will)

The second engagement was in heavy seas as you state, and i have read reports that the Bismarck's main guns were unable to hit Rodney at all, in any event was unable to any significant damage.

TREATY BATTLESHIPS

It's a matter of opinion which would be the best in a duel, I certainly don't dispute that the Bismarck was a very fine ship. I aslo stated in a "straight duel" BB to BB {such as the Bismarck engagements} if the ship was judged also on its capability as a surface raider or fast BB, the Nelson can't compare. but in this example, *I think the larger number of heavier guns, heavier armour, concentration of firepower forward give the edge in combat to the Nelson's*

P.S. I picked the Nelson as the best in a BB vs. BB fight, I'm giving second place to the Richelieu, partly for sentimental reasons, as I think its a shame that circumstances of war didn't allow these fine French ships to play an active part during the early war years, when it really counted. 

I can't really fault any of the designs, these were all fine ships. The Nagato was way ahead of it's time as a fast battleship {in spite of the goofy looking "Pagoda" top}, the US BB's were also solid designs, and the Littorio's were a very good effort from the Italians.


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## comiso90 (Feb 12, 2008)

Does anybody have any photos of the Richelieu firing a forward salvo? It would be a cool pic.

.


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## Thorlifter (Feb 12, 2008)

Glider said:


> I went for the Nelson as the best in 1941. At the end of the day in a straight fight, you cannot beat the thickest armour, biggest gun and a FC Radar that was probably the best of its time.
> Also its AA suite was also ahead of most equalled possibly only by the Bismark.



For all these reasons, I vote for the Nelson also.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 13, 2008)

One also has to take into account that when the Bismarck was engaged by the KGV and Rodney she was not able to maneuver. She was allready doomed by the Swordfish attack. 

The KGV and Rodney were a maneuvering pair of ships with Destroyers attacking a ship that was pretty much dead in the water. Yes she was able to move but her maneuvering was severely hampered.

This engagement is not one that I would really judge the Bismarcks Fire Control ability or her crews ability.


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## Glider (Feb 13, 2008)

Have to agree with that.


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## Arsenal VG-33 (Feb 13, 2008)

I'm biased towards the _Richelieu_, and also the _Jean Bart _of the same class. However, the _Strasbourg_ (Dunkerque class) has always been my favorite, and I would have prefered her.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 13, 2008)

Arsenal VG-33 said:


> I'm biased towards the _Richelieu_, and also the _Jean Bart _of the same class. However, the _Strasbourg_ (Dunkerque class) has always been my favorite, and I would have prefered her.



Ofcourse you are. There French.


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## paf (Feb 13, 2008)

freebird said:


> The second engagement was in heavy seas as you state, and i have read reports that the Bismarck's main guns were unable to hit Rodney at all, in any event was unable to any significant damage.



I think I read somewhere that the fire-control of the Bismarck was hit fatal right in the beginning of the fight. I look if I can find it again 

Edit: Bismarck - The History - The Final Battle


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## Arsenal VG-33 (Feb 13, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Ofcourse you are. There French.



I chose the Richelieu because I feel that had she been able to serve on the open seas as she was supposed to, she could have more than held her own. Same goes for the Jean Bart. I just happen to like the Strasbourg a little better. Another factor maybe is that I'm more familiar with those ships, so therefore the rule of "I go with what I know" sort of applies. And yes, the fact that they were French also makes me all giddy inside.

Personally speaking, I'm really not that fascinated with the Bismark as others are. While not a battleship (and for that reason not one the list), a German vessel I would gladly choose over Bismark is the Graf Spee.


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## delcyros (Feb 13, 2008)

> The North Carolina was commissioned in April 1941


In may 1941, NORTH CAROLINA has no radar and lot´s of vibration troubles to be sorted out. It was limited to 24 Kts top speed or the sensible equipement (rangefinders and radar) was rendered unservicable.



> the Richelieu was 95% complete before escaping from France in June 1940, so it could have been ready in May 1941, I don't have exact information on the damage it suffered in the British attack or if any repairs were made.


Richelieu in may 1941 has two out of eight main guns unservicable and did not received a full ammunition complement. It also suffers from incomplete firecontrollsuites and lot´s of minor troubles. Had France not disappeared, Richelieu might well have been worked up enough to become servicable but historically in may 1941, she wasn´t.



> I'm not claiming that the Bismarck's fire control was "faulty", only that it was comparable to the British ships.


And that´s what I disagree, seriously. Our reports show clearly that the opposite is the case. Radar rangings from KGV´s and PoW´s radar sets had to be called down into the FC room (correspondingly no radar rangings contributed to their firing solutions) while Bismarck´s FC was the first to enjoi integrated radar and optical ranging fed into the analogous computer by wires. The observer just discriminated the target on the stereoscopic rangefinder or marked it on the radarset and the range readings were automaticly fed into the FC computer. Bismarck is a candidate to have used radar directed blindfire against Cossack in the night before it´s final battle for the first time ever in a naval engagement. Altough this was definetely something beyond it´s radar capabilities and has been catsed in doubt as this is based mostly on assumptions from Cossacks crew. You have not shown that UK gunnery by may 1941 was up to Bismarck´s standarts. Battle records are showing a different picture. Individual differences are notable. Hoods FC did not even straddled Bismarck, altough seasoned while PoW´s FC, beeing accused for green crews, did made a better job in zeroing in than any other UK gunnery crew, they just lacked the ability to keep a good firing solution.

[/quote]The situation was completely different in the 2 engagements, the first (in calm seas) resulted in both sides scoring hits, with significant damage to the German BB, some damage to the POW and one (catastrophic!) hit on the Hood.[/quote] You are again selective in perception. Hits are only statistical sideaspects from straddles. A good gunnery crew achieved repeated straddles and sometimes a hit resulted from those. Even a perfect aiming point does not ensure hits due to dispersion issues. Scoring hits is a serious non starter for comparing gunnery. 
To put Your significant damage on Bismarck into context: One hit went through the bow, deleting part of the forward fuel buncerage, one hit went under the belt, detonating on the torpedo bulkhead, leading to the flooding of an auxilary engine room nearby. One hit went on the boat deck and was deflected away. It eventually damaged some compressed airlines. No crews were injured. NONE OF THE COMBAT RELATED ASPECTS SUFFERED from these hits. Ship controll, firecontroll, gunnery, propulsion, navigation, all remained intact. Now what happened on PoW? One hit went under the belt and lead to minor flooding but was stopped by the torpedo bulkhead without detonation. One hit went on the aft funnel basement, rupturing exhoust lines and started a fire. One hit went through the forward rangefinder, disabling it, one through the combat bridge, killing everybody on station except Captn. Leach (injured) and another one. Another hit went through the aft superstructures without notable effect, two hits were on the waterline aft, contributing to local flooding. As an effect of the aforementioned hits and basic gunnery breakdowns, PoW was deprived of ship controll, firecontroll, gunnery and limited to 26 Kts at the very time it turned away. That´s some serious damage to her combat related aspects. BTW, Bismarck did not scored just one hit on Hood. Bismarck scored from her 3rd and 5th salvo achieving straddles from the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th salvo.



> The second engagement was in heavy seas as you state, and i have read reports that the Bismarck's main guns were unable to hit Rodney at all, in any event was unable to any significant damage.



Indeed. But keep in mind that they achieved 3 straddles under aft firecontroll when main and secondary FC was disabled, already. They are reported to have achieved two straddles on local turret controll, too. Rodney estimated in her after action report that the second salvo fired from Bismarck would have straddled her had she not previously engaged salvo chasing maneuvers.


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## timshatz (Feb 13, 2008)

Good post (as always) Delc. 

Based on that info, I'm going with the Bismark. That is very good shooting. Especially impressed with the automatic updates to the gunnery solution by the radar. That is very slick for 1941. 

It has always bothered me that the Admiral in charge of the British BB/BC at the Battle of the Denmark Straights didn't:

1. Switch the Hood and the POW in position, putting the ship with better armor and less experience in the lead. It seems senseable. Anybody know why he didn't do that, other than the obvious flagship in the lead custom.

2. Get the Norfolk and Suffolk into the fight as well, causing the German ships to split their fire between two opposing forces. 

I am aware of the navigational error that brought the British ships into action on a slow, side closing course rather than head to head, as was desired. 

Just seems the battle was set up to give the German ships the best shot at survival (unintentional, I am sure). Or, put another way, the plan went to hell in a handbasket in no time.


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## Njaco (Feb 13, 2008)

Tim, did Prinz Eugen take on Norfolk and Suffolk? That may be why.


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## timshatz (Feb 13, 2008)

Njaco, just did a little reading up on the Battle of the Denmark Straight. The original plan was for the Suffolk and Norfolk to take on the Prince Eugen but they never got the message from the Admiral in charge of the Hood/POW force. 

Evidently, when the shooting started between the Hood/POW and the Bismark/Prince Eugen, the Norfolk kicked it in gear and moved into the firght. Shortly after the Hood blew up, the Norfolk fired 3 salvos at the Bismark. But that was pretty much it.

Here's a link to the write, looks pretty thorough:

http://www.kbismarck.com/ds-barticle.pdf


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## Glider (Feb 13, 2008)

Considering the lack of training and the appalling reliability of the quad turrets the POW did well to get the hits she did and achieve the main aim which was to turn the Bismark back and force her to abandon her mission. A lot of the time the POW only had the twin turret firing.
As Delc says where a ship is hit at a long range target is down to luck, you aim to hit the ship. Had the Bismark been hit in the rangefinder then I have no doubt it would have been knocked out and the same goes for the Battle Bridge. The Bismark did lose speed as a result of the POW hits and she was down by the bow by a noticable amount.

If the POW had been fully worked up then I believe that she would have done better. The Quad turrets remained unreliable almost until the end of the war.

The ship that I went for was the Nelson. At the time she was the first BB to be fitted with the type 284 fire control radar. This radar was used by the Duke of York to sink the Scharnhorst, firing blind, at night, in a storm. It may not have been as slick as the Bismark, but there is no doubt that it was a very capable FCS radar.

The Nelson was worked up, her 16in guns were now reliable and her armour more substantial in many ways than the POW. In a straight fight it would be close and probably down to the luck factor that has been mentioned, but I would still back the Nelson.


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## Freebird (Feb 13, 2008)

delcyros said:


> In may 1941, NORTH CAROLINA has no radar and lot´s of vibration troubles to be sorted out. It was limited to 24 Kts top speed or the sensible equipement (rangefinders and radar) was rendered unservicable.
> 
> Richelieu in may 1941 has two out of eight main guns unservicable and did not received a full ammunition complement. It also suffers from incomplete firecontrollsuites and lot´s of minor troubles. *Had France not disappeared,* {surrendered} *Richelieu might well have been worked up enough to become servicable but historically in may 1941, she wasn´t.*



Neither of these ships were in "proper condition", granted. *IF* there had been some emergency {such as an attack} they might have been called out in that condition, much as the PoW was called out before it had been properly worked up. I included them in the poll for balance and assuming they had been fixed in May 1941, but for purists just ignore them.




delcyros said:


> And that´s what I disagree, seriously. Our reports show clearly that the opposite is the case. *You have not shown that UK gunnery by may 1941 was up to Bismarck´s standards.* Battle records are showing a different picture. Individual differences are notable. Hoods FC did not even straddled Bismarck, altough seasoned while PoW´s FC, beeing accused for green crews, did made a better job in zeroing in than any other UK gunnery crew, they just lacked the ability to keep a good firing solution.



*I'm comparing the Bismarck's fire control to that of the Nelson,* not the Prince of Wales. Obviously not all British BB's could be fitted with the newest fire control at the same time. 



Glider said:


> The ship that I went for was the Nelson. *At the time she was the first BB to be fitted with the type 284 fire control radar*. This radar was used by the Duke of York to sink the Scharnhorst, firing blind, at night, in a storm. It may not have been as slick as the Bismark, but there is no doubt that it was a very capable FCS radar.
> 
> The Nelson was worked up, her 16in guns were now reliable and her armour more substantial in many ways than the POW. In a straight fight it would be close and probably down to the luck factor that has been mentioned, but I would still back the Nelson.





delcyros said:


> .
> 
> 
> 
> ...



True, the hits on a BB are random. On the other hand in engagements against Bismarck and the Italian BB's none of the British BB's were put out of action, including the PoW. The Hood, of course, being a Battlecruiser should never have been put in an engagement against a Battleship. {lessons not learned in WWI} 



> To put Your significant damage on Bismarck into context: One hit went through the bow, deleting part of the forward fuel buncerage, one hit went under the belt, detonating on the torpedo bulkhead, leading to the flooding of an auxilary engine room nearby. One hit went on the boat deck and was deflected away. It eventually damaged some compressed airlines. No crews were injured. NONE OF THE COMBAT RELATED ASPECTS SUFFERED from these hits. Ship controll, firecontroll, gunnery, propulsion, navigation, all remained intact. PoW was deprived of ship controll, firecontroll, gunnery and limited to 26 Kts at the very time it turned away. That´s some serious damage to her combat related aspects. BTW, Bismarck did not scored just one hit on Hood. Bismarck scored from her 3rd and 5th salvo achieving straddles from the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th salvo.



No and I didn't say that the PoW didn't take some serious damage, although the ship was still available for action that day, and continued in the persuit until she ran low on fuel. *Bismarck on the other hand, was forced to abandon the sortie against shipping,* due to fuel loss contamination from seawater. Which was the whole point from the British point of view, to prevent Bismarck from making it into the Atlantic. Also note that the "minor hit" prevented Bismarck from steaming at full speed because of damage the fuel situation. {to prevent the contamination from worsening}


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## Freebird (Feb 13, 2008)

Arsenal VG-33 said:


> I chose the Richelieu because I feel that had she been able to serve on the open seas as she was supposed to, she could have more than held her own. Same goes for the Jean Bart. I just happen to like the Strasbourg a little better. Another factor maybe is that I'm more familiar with those ships, so therefore the rule of *"I go with what I know"* sort of applies. And yes, the fact that they were French also makes me all giddy inside.



 There does seem to be some patriotism at work here. As I said earlier, it's too bad that events didn't let the French BB's show their full potential. 

Delcyros I see you picked the Littorio, I'd be interested to hear your opinions on the Italian ships. If this had been summer 1940 instead of 1941, it might be a whole different story, no Bismarck, no K.G.V.


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## Glider (Feb 14, 2008)

I admit that I like the Littorio, in fact I like most of the Italian Navy. What lets them down isn't the ships, speed, weapons or armour ,its because technically they were not up to scratch. They lacked radar and their FCS were not as good as the rest.


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## SeaSkua (Feb 15, 2008)

Glider said:


> Also its AA suite was also ahead of most equalled possibly only by the Bismark.



Why couldnt BISMARK shoot down ANY of the SWORDFISH? It was such a SLOW aircraft


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 15, 2008)

Arsenal VG-33 said:


> I chose the Richelieu because I feel that had she been able to serve on the open seas as she was supposed to, she could have more than held her own. Same goes for the Jean Bart. I just happen to like the Strasbourg a little better. Another factor maybe is that I'm more familiar with those ships, so therefore the rule of "I go with what I know" sort of applies. And yes, the fact that they were French also makes me all giddy inside.



The reason I dont like the Richelieu is because of the layout of her main guns.

While it had advantages such as saving weight and enabling her to fire all her main armament from the foward position while closing on enemy ships, it was also a big disadvantage in the fact that one well placed round could take all her main armament.

Same with the Dunkerque Class.


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## Arsenal VG-33 (Feb 15, 2008)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> The reason I dont like the Richelieu is because of the layout of her main guns.
> 
> While it had advantages such as saving weight and enabling her to fire all her main armament from the foward position while closing on enemy ships, it was also a big disadvantage in the fact that one well placed round could take all her main armament.
> 
> Same with the Dunkerque Class.




Well, the inherent risk for all kinds of machinery is that the entire thing can be ruined/destroyed by a single small object. They're more exceptions than the norm I think. A single armored-piercing bomb effectively destroyed the USS Arizona. In Vietnam, the VC discovered that a well placed 0.02 cent bullet could destroy a multi-million dollar aircraft. Look at what a well placed torpedo did to the Bismarck's steering. 

There's no doubt the Richelieu had her weak points, as did the Bismarck. Thats why it is interesting in examining ships from different countries, as they are built with specific threats in mind. Each vessel having a marked advantage other others, as well as a weakness. With so many factors involved in keeping large warships afloat, armed, and well protected, sacrifices will be made somewhere, and some things may even be overlooked.


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## Arsenal VG-33 (Feb 15, 2008)

SeaSkua said:


> Why couldnt BISMARK shoot down ANY of the SWORDFISH? It was such a SLOW aircraft



Perhaps someone will correct me if necessary, but I vaguely remember reading something about the Bismarcks AA systems being designed to rotate quickly to effectively counter the threat of fast and modern fighters/torpedo planes. As the Swordfish was so slow, I think the AA crews had difficulties in keeping their sights trained on the biplanes, as the guns kept over-correcting. Again, I could be wrong, but thats what I recall reading somewhere. I think maybe I heard Dr. Ballard say something about this, I'm not sure.


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## delcyros (Feb 15, 2008)

> I'm comparing the Bismarck's fire control to that of the Nelson, not the Prince of Wales. Obviously not all British BB's could be fitted with the newest fire control at the same time.



So You are taking Bismarck´s gunnery at her final battle as representative with the conditions of the engagement? I take this as a methodical mistake. Comparing Bismarck with PoW is more even. PoW´s gunnery was excellent, if not outstanding at danmark street and deserves to be mentioned in this capacity. Rodneys after action report notes that Bismarck´s 2nd salvo would have straddled her, not bad, too.
Rodney´s FC was very good. But it´s excellence derives from the more advanced radarset rather than from the FC, itselve. 



> On the other hand in engagements against Bismarck and the Italian BB's none of the British BB's were put out of action, including the PoW. The Hood, of course, being a Battlecruiser should never have been put in an engagement against a Battleship. {lessons not learned in WWI}


There are a number of reasons to classify Hood as the worlds first fast battleship. It features wwI design charackteristics. But unlike the ww1 BC´s, it has BB -style armement and even better armour protection than any ww1 BB. It combines firepower, protection and excellent speed for the costs of excessive displacement, much like the later Iowas from a design layout point of view.
I would also like to stress that BB engagements were not happening often enough to draw statistical conclusions from them.



> No and I didn't say that the PoW didn't take some serious damage, although the ship was still available for action that day, and continued in the persuit until she ran low on fuel. Bismarck on the other hand, was forced to abandon the sortie against shipping, due to fuel loss contamination from seawater. Which was the whole point from the British point of view, to prevent Bismarck from making it into the Atlantic. Also note that the "minor hit" prevented Bismarck from steaming at full speed because of damage the fuel situation. {to prevent the contamination from worsening}


What do You think would have happened to PoW if Lutjens had allowed Lindemann to keep fighting PoW? It was Lutjens decision, which safed PoW in her critical condition. By all definition, PoW was crippled (ship controll and main gunnery temporarely out of action, secondary guns on local = ineffective controll) and deprived from it´s ability to shoot back or disengage when she turned away. In fact, Bismarck was the only ship of the dreadnought era that had the best opportunity to sink two enemy capital ships in the same engagement. I am not saying that this is typical. The destruction of HMS Hood was unlucky and the engagement could easily have outturned with Bismarck resting on the seabed.
Bismarck, btw, was not forced to abandon the sortie by this engagement. Had it been, she would have returned to Norway. What ended her sortie was the successful shadowing of HMS Suffolk afterwards, which prevented Bismarck from breaking free to refuel on Altmark in the North Atlantic until it was to late. Suffolk would have accomplished this task with or without HMS Prince of Wales. From this point of view the UK strategy failed at danmark street. Prinz Eugen continued his raid in the North Atlantic after refueling on Altmark -even if he didn´t found targets.
Bismarck´s speed was not directly influenced by the hit. It could still mainten it´s designed max speed of 29 Kts (altough the enforced 30 Kts top speed would have become impossible due to bow list) throughout the engagement and reduced it´s speed after action in order to conserve fuel. This is intentional, not enforced.



> Delcyros I see you picked the Littorio, I'd be interested to hear your opinions on the Italian ships. If this had been summer 1940 instead of 1941, it might be a whole different story, no Bismarck, no K.G.V.



Considering the design of Littorio, the ship was excellent. As Glider has pointed out above, there were a number of drawbacks such as mediocre FC and unreliable italian APC-shells but her guns were arguably the most powerful of all in competition and her armour was tougher than most (thanks to superior italian face hardened armour and the successful use of decapping plates, her decks were weaker but still good enough for the combat distances envisioned). Of course, the Littorio class is a suboptimal "atlantic" BB and would have been terribly handicapped by low stability and short endurance but for the conditions envisioned -the calm mediterranean theatre of action- she looks very promising.



> Well, the inherent risk for all kinds of machinery is that the entire thing can be ruined/destroyed by a single small object. They're more exceptions than the norm I think. A single armored-piercing bomb effectively destroyed the USS Arizona. In Vietnam, the VC discovered that a well placed 0.02 cent bullet could destroy a multi-million dollar aircraft. Look at what a well placed torpedo did to the Bismarck's steering.
> There's no doubt the Richelieu had her weak points, as did the Bismarck. Thats why it is interesting in examining ships from different countries, as they are built with specific threats in mind. Each vessel having a marked advantage other others, as well as a weakness. With so many factors involved in keeping large warships afloat, armed, and well protected, sacrifices will be made somewhere, and some things may even be overlooked.


Very well said, Arsenal. The reason I didn´t voted for Richelieu is a single one: Inacceptable large dispersion patterns of her main battery. Straddling somthing would be easy with a mean dispersion of 1.450 - 1.700 m but hitting a completely different matter (You would need staistically six times more straddles in Richelieu to land a hit on BB sized targets than in Hood or Bismarck). I prefer ships which could land closely spaced salvo patterns like the UK 15"/42, the US 16"/45 or the german 15"/52 in a one on one engagement. 



> Perhaps someone will correct me if necessary, but I vaguely remember reading something about the Bismarcks AA systems being designed to rotate quickly to effectively counter the threat of fast and modern fighters/torpedo planes. As the Swordfish was so slow, I think the AA crews had difficulties in keeping their sights trained on the biplanes, as the guns kept over-correcting. Again, I could be wrong, but thats what I recall reading somewhere. I think maybe I heard Dr. Ballard say something about this, I'm not sure.



It had actually nothing to do with the rotation or tracking. The 4.1"/65 was actually a dual purpose gun. If it could track ships, it shouldn´t experience these kind of tracking deficiancies if engaging slow airplanes. The problem was the fuze setting of the AA-round. The AA curtain deployed behind the planes as the dely fuzing was designed for faster approach speeds. This was recitified in 1941.

best regards,
delc


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## machine shop tom (Feb 15, 2008)

Let's not ignore the Nagato. The 16" guns were among the best of the day, and the Japanese (at that time) were still the masters of the Pacific. The armor protection was well-designed and effective. And those pagoda masts were darned intimidating. Just ask the fellas in Taffy 3.

tom


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## Lucky13 (Feb 16, 2008)

I finally voted for Nagato....











Nagato, Kirishima, Ise and Hyuga....






And some cool pics of Nagato, Saratoga and a few other ships today at the Bikini Atoll:
"Deepscape Photography â€“ Shipwrecks in Bikini Atoll, Saratoga, Nagato, Lamson, Anderson, Carlisle. James Lee, underwater, shipwreck, nature photographer." />


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## Lucky13 (Feb 17, 2008)

Yamashiro in Tokyo Bay, Japan, after 1935.
Behind her are the battleships Fuso and Haruna (most distant). Faintly visible in the right distance are two cruisers and an aircraft carrier.


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## Glider (Feb 17, 2008)

The following is a good description of the last voyage of the Bismark with good descriptions of the battles.

The whole site gives a good description of the Vessel in great detail and I commend it to anyone.

KBismarck.com - Operation Rheinbung


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## timshatz (Feb 18, 2008)

Wasn't the Nagoto of an older class of BB? Along the lines of the Colorado in age and technology?


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## delcyros (Feb 21, 2008)

The Nagato is very much like an improved Queen Elizabeth from a design point of view. It is, however, hardly the best ship by 1940. Very competetive and worth beeing mentioned but not the best in a straight out battle. 
Her punch is excellent but her protection lacks.
The Nagato had one of the strangest armour layouts ever to be implemented into a dreadnought. In her 1940 stage she is very much like a paper tiger. Large, unprotected blisters helped her buoyancy but would become very troublesome in combat (offering huge unprotected off center flooding spaces) and reduced her speed to 25 Kts.
Her vintage Vickers FH 11.8" main belt was not inclined and likely to be penetrated by the comparably weak "belt" penetrating UK 15"/42 with average gunwear in excess of 20.000 yards (even the 11"/54, the lightest major calibre gun has reasonable chances to defeat the belt at 20.000 yards). There was kind of a slope behind, improving protection but mainly against splinters. The 3" slope was neither thick enough (effectively 2.3" since a 50mm were ww1 homogenious armour laminated over 25mm made from construction grade material) nor steep enough to deflect penetrating APC´s. This approach is correct for ww1 style protection against instantious delayed APC´s which would detonate while penetrating but once advanced and reliable delay fuzed, hard capped APC become avaiable it was defective. In order to demonstrate how poor this side protection is I use the italian 15"/50 against this belt. Using Nathan Okuns Facehd v. 5.8 returns that the belt and slope behind are likely to be penetrated from 0 to 36.000 yards (impact velocity is 1585 fps after loosing windscreen first remaining velocity post belt is 612 fps in effective bursting condition but decapped, which is enough to defeat the slope behind)
Her multi layered deck protection is excellent against bombs and HC major calibre impacts but against modern APC it was of questionable use, too. At 25.000 yards latest, the UK 15"/42, beeing an excellent deck penetrator, will start to defeat her deck protection. Finally, the compact arrangement of her secondary guns in weakly protected casematte mounts with unprotected hoists is asking for fluke hits bypassing the whole protection system. 
All in all, the Maryland, Hood, Nelson and even the Dunkerque beside others have superior protection of the embedded vitals and even the exposed are not much worse. Nagato is only little better off in armour protection of the embedded vitals than ww1 german BC´s, altough much better in turret and deck protection. With her unbalanced armour protection and huge offensive capabilities in mind, she reminds me very much of an improved Battlecruiser rather than a battleship.


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## renrich (Feb 21, 2008)

In a gunfight I would pick Bismarck because of overall superior armor, firepower and I don't think you can ignore speed. However, and this is a major factor, in a night battle Nagato might be a victor because of the Japanese proficiency in night fighting. Another factor which might favor the Nagato was that she carried torpedoes and the IJN torpedoes were the most capable in the world. Torpedoes let water in, bombs and shells let air in. As far as AA armament was concerned very few ships in 1941 had very capable AA suites both because of fire control problems and because of number of weapons especially automatic ones.


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## timshatz (Feb 21, 2008)

I dunno Renich, if you're in a Battleship and close enough to fire torpedoes (even the Japanese Long Lance), you're probably too close. Should be a couple of divisions of Destroyers and Cruisers between you and the target to make sure things never get that tight (Battle of Guadalcanal, Nov 13 14th notwithstanding).


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## delcyros (Feb 21, 2008)

renrich said:


> In a gunfight I would pick Bismarck because of overall superior armor, firepower and I don't think you can ignore speed. However, and this is a major factor, in a night battle Nagato might be a victor because of the Japanese proficiency in night fighting. Another factor which might favor the Nagato was that she carried torpedoes and the IJN torpedoes were the most capable in the world. Torpedoes let water in, bombs and shells let air in. As far as AA armament was concerned very few ships in 1941 had very capable AA suites both because of fire control problems and because of number of weapons especially automatic ones.



But we should keep in mind, Renrich, that the Long Lances are a serious thread to Nagato itself. The IJN lost a number of CA´s due to secondary explosion of their Long Lance batteries. The Long Lances with their do have a very volatile propulsion system, allowing great performances but in turn make them more suspect of premature explosion than steam and / or electrically driven torpedoes. This is even more important as the batteries are only protected with a thin deck above (which is not thick enough to stop heaviest fragmentation of major cal. impacts) and an armoured deck below with lot´s of soft areas for the sec. gun hoists. A hit with a 4" gun on them may turn into a very serious event with IJN damage controll in mind. There are no armoured vertical bulkheads. I know only of one excusion for carrying large donates of torpedoes in a capital ship: in order to hasten the sinking of other ships which do not shoot back, in other words, of merchants. The Nagato class, however, is no raider and never was used in this capacity.

regarding AAA:
The German naval FLAK was of a relatively high order exceded only by the US naval systems of the later stage when VT-fuzes were broadly avaiable: the twin 105mm mounts were gyro stabilized on a triaxial mount which ompensated fully for ships motion, the elevation of the gun was controlled directly via what in USN jargon is called RPC (remote power control) from the director computer and an automatic fuse setter mechanism were provided for to time the FLAK burst. The FLAK predictor was full tachimetric (probably a second order system) capable of producing continuous firing and fuse setting solutions for targets firing a variety of trajectories (eg taking into account range, speed, acceleration. Although elevation control was automatic the Traverse of the gun was still by semiautomatic. Other limitations were that the mount was open, leaving its crew exposed and creating serious maintenance problems caused by sea water ingress. For comparison at this time the Royal Navy High Altitude system was only able to deal with targets flying a level flight path (e.g. torpedoe attacks but not dive bombers) and lacked any remote power control. 
However, no battleship in ww2 could provide self protection in a sense to deny enemy planes to drop their ordenance on them, on their own. AAA is a numbers game and statistically even late war radar directed AAA required to much shots to down a plane to justify beeing "self protective". Out of 12 attacking planes with the time exposure in mind, late war AAA could knock out 3 to four of them, while the remaining 8 will end up unengaged. Things change if You factor in AAA-support by nearby ships and a clear target, which tend to benefit the defender over proportionally.
The US 5" mounts were excellent AAA guns, allowing a high degree of reliability, a decent shell size and an outstanding rate of fire. The british 5.25" mounts were questionable in high angle operation and more an augmented anti-surface weapon, italian 100mm mounts were equally in performance than german 105mm mounts (fully triaxially stabilized mountings) but much more unreliable. The japanese late war 100mm mounts were probably the best AA-weapons but these have only been used in a number of destroyers. I do not know of french mounts but remember that the DP gun was a failure, too and some post war french destroyers used german 4.1" mounts instead.
I do also believe that the belt fed 40mm Bofors was regarded as the best (by far) medium AAA weapon by all combattants.


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## renrich (Feb 21, 2008)

Del, my reference shows Nagato with 21 inch torpedo tubes. I believe the long lance was 24 inch. There may have been problems with long lance mounts but the IJN sank a lot of US ships and killed a lot of sailors with their torpedos. In a night action or bad weather with poor visibility torpedoes fired by BBs could be very dangerous. The Germans may have had sophisticated director systems for their AA but the facts are that they did not do much against a bunch of Stringbags. Later in the war with proximity fuses and improved director systems and with many automatic and reliable 20 and 40 mm weapons, the US BBs were formidable AA batteries for the fast carriers and they were pretty much invulnerable to bombs carried by carrier borne AC. All the 40 mm Bofors I have seen were fed by magazines not belts.


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## Glider (Feb 21, 2008)

One problem with the AA guns on the Bismark were that they tended to be overcomplicated. My understanding was that the tri axis stabalisation of the 4.1 and the 37mm was that they tended to break down and on the 37mm this was abandoned on later models. The British had a similar problem with the Hazellmere twin 40 mounting fitted on later destroyers.
The 37mm was also disappointing in that is was a semi automatic with each shell loaded individually giving a ROF of about 30 shells a minute which is very slow for an AA gun.


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## renrich (Feb 21, 2008)

Glider, what piece of equipment did the Germans ever build which wasn't overcomplicated?


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## Glider (Feb 22, 2008)

The bayonet


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## Lucky13 (Feb 22, 2008)

Anyhoo....who which of these lassies could toss their beans the furthest. Obviously the ship with the longest range guns, will be able to pick their fights and stay somewhat safe themself....right?


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## joy17782 (Feb 22, 2008)

it was the north carolina class i think lucky, and the shells had a very good penatration , as good as the jap 18 inchers , but i think the range was 23 miles or so


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## Glider (Feb 22, 2008)

Lucky13 said:


> Anyhoo....who which of these lassies could toss their beans the furthest. Obviously the ship with the longest range guns, will be able to pick their fights and stay somewhat safe themself....right?



Tempting to think so but in reality it isn't the case. The longest range hit on a moving target was by the Warspite at around 26,000 yards. You are just wasting ammunition trying to hit anything beyond that.


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## renrich (Feb 22, 2008)

Don't I remember that some BB made a hit during WW2 at 38000 yards?


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## joy17782 (Feb 22, 2008)

yeah i read that somewhere , but i do belive the nc class had the best range of there guns and very accurate too


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## timshatz (Feb 22, 2008)

I think the trick is not only the gun but the fire control. That's where it all comes together. I am impressed by the Bismark's Fire Control and speed of salvos. I read somewhere she could get off 3 salvos a minute. That is very fast. And as Delc's post noted, she got straddles almost right away (if not right away). That is incredible shooting.

The question I would wonder about is between a North Carolina and Bismark class, which has the superior:

-Fire Control
-Rate of Fire
-Grouping (rounds landing closest together at great distance)
-Penetration
-Armor

Going with the perspective we have time and again with aircraft of WW2, the most recently completed tends to be the most technologically advanced. I think both of those ships were Commissioned within months of each other.

It would be an interesting question. 

Further, what about the Guam class vs Scharnhorst class? Both BCs.


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## Kurfürst (Feb 22, 2008)

Glider said:


> The 37mm was also disappointing in that is was a semi automatic with each shell loaded individually giving a ROF of about 30 shells a minute which is very slow for an AA gun.



OTOH, it had extremely high muzzle velocity of something like 1000 m/sec IIRC. It was clearly designed to be a sort of 'sniper' gun, bringing down the danged things before they get close. 

Considering when the weapon was designed, it was perhaps not a faulty approach. Later it become obsolent because of the limited RoF aspects you`ve mentioned, though at the start of the war I can hardly recall the other guns being better than it... The French iirc used 25mm (too small), the British Pom-Poms havig just too low muzzle velocity.

The classic 40mm Bofors, or the very high RoF 3.7cm autocannons taken from the LW would be a far better choice than any of these. I am not sure though when the Bofors appeared on US BBs..?


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## delcyros (Feb 22, 2008)

renrich said:


> Del, my reference shows Nagato with 21 inch torpedo tubes. I believe the long lance was 24 inch. There may have been problems with long lance mounts but the IJN sank a lot of US ships and killed a lot of sailors with their torpedos. In a night action or bad weather with poor visibility torpedoes fired by BBs could be very dangerous. The Germans may have had sophisticated director systems for their AA but the facts are that they did not do much against a bunch of Stringbags. Later in the war with proximity fuses and improved director systems and with many automatic and reliable 20 and 40 mm weapons, the US BBs were formidable AA batteries for the fast carriers and they were pretty much invulnerable to bombs carried by carrier borne AC. All the 40 mm Bofors I have seen were fed by magazines not belts.



I have rerad my ressources regarding Nagato and Mutsu. Both were originally designed to carry two submerged 21" torpedoe tubes each at the bow and stern but owing to their dangerous installation outside the vitals and the blisters, all were removed during their rebuild in 1936. By 1941, Nagato does not appear to carry any torpedoes. I believe this improves her survivability, moreso because the japanese navy in ww2 used Long Lance torpedoes exclusively for surface ships and 21" torpedoes mainly for submarines, respectively.
Bismarck´s AAA setup was actually semi optimal. By the standarts of early 1941 it is on of the finest but as executed, the 4.1" twin batteries were in an incorrect setup. Half of the mounts were the older C31 mounts, which were slower traversing and designed for 88mm guns instead. Commentaries regarding unreliabance of the mounts do refer to the C31 mounts whenever they can be traced back to the two different mount types. The other half of the mounts were C33 mounts, fully optimized for 105mm guns (Bismarck should get her four C31 mounts replaced by C33 mounts in France after Rheinübung, Tirpitz was completed with C33 mounts). The AVKS report mentions that this setup caused a half of her AA battery consistantly failing to follow RPC inputs contemporary under some conditions, notably rapid traversing actions. The higher than necessary AA fuze setting system also made deploy the AAA curtain behind the slower Stringbags. Shortcomings in AA system operations can be found in almost every nation (including the US) by 1941. However, the whole system was not worse and it´s defects appear to have been adressed subsequently.
Tirpitz was able to down two Fairy Albacore torpedoe bombers and damage several others in a comparable situation during under average weather and average seastate in march 1942 off Norway and her ammo expensure figures for this action are excellent for these results. Tirpitz used up 345 rounds 4.1" and 4.269 rounds 37mm 20mm light AAA for downing two planes. Compare these figures with figures from the Special Defense Operations Research Group (SpecORG) study, "AA Defense of the Fast Carrier Task Force - 24 October 1944 To 21 March 1945", Anti-Aircraft Study No. 8, revised 11 September 1945. They address only carrier task groups, for which the best data were available in the timeframe of the USN´s best AAA conditions (radar, RPC, VT-fuzes, task forces, tactical doctrines).
The figures for 41 downed planes in non-kamikaze action represent that in average 550 VT-fuzed 5"/38, or 4.500 40mm or 30.100 20mm rounds are necessary to down a single plane. If anything, the statistical comparisons shows that Tirpitz relative AAA combat performance in early 1942 was not much different from the mean "effective" combat AAA performance of USN task forced ships during 1944/45, despite missing the VT-shells (around 1000 5"/38 MT-fuzed shells were necessary to down a plane). I am aware of the problem that conclusions shouldn´t be drawn from such a thin statistical base but I found this worth mentioning for this purpose: Assuming You replace Tirpitz with 1945 Iowa, it wouldn´t have changed anything. A number of torpedoe planes would still be unengaged and able to drop their torpedoes... On their own, no BB could effectively defend herself against agressive air opposition in a sense to deny them dropping their ordenance. 



> The 37mm was also disappointing in that is was a semi automatic with each shell loaded individually giving a ROF of about 30 shells a minute which is very slow for an AA gun.


Very true. But there is still a reason to keep the 37mm: According to Navweaps, the 900 gramms heavy 40mm US HE mark 2 round contained 67 gramms of high explosive. The 742 gramms 37mm HE-T projectile, actually a mine round, contained 365 gramms of high explosive. To put this number into prospect: That´s more than five times the 40mm´s blast effects and on par with the late war US 3"/50 AA round!



> Don't I remember that some BB made a hit during WW2 at 38000 yards?


 Probably not my friend. This is often confused with the after action report and the press report of Surigao Street. At 38.000 to 35.000 distance, the battle begun - but without the BB´s firing a shot. The IJN BB´s were attacked by prepositioned PT-boats and DD´s with torpedoes with the Big ships staying in the background, the gun action finally commenced at about 22.000 yards (which I regard still very long range for a night action).


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## delcyros (Feb 22, 2008)

timshatz said:


> I am impressed by the Bismark's Fire Control and speed of salvos. I read somewhere she could get off 3 salvos a minute. That is very fast.



It is very high indeed for a major calibre gun. But this figure shouldn´t be overstressed. Typically, average rates of fire were much lower. The peak rate of firing was to be established once repeated straddles have been achieved. It is furthely limited by the range in question (time to elevate the barrels) and thus barely ever achieved. There is photographic evidence from the Schmalenbach movie that Bismarck achieved a cyclic rate of fire of 8 to 9 sec. between main gun half salvos (= peak rate of fire 16 to 18 sec.) for the latter part of a single but decisive minute against Hood, the average rate of fire was at about 1 salvo pm for the whole engagement. Crew performance was decisisve.



> The question I would wonder about is between a North Carolina and Bismark class, which has the superior:
> -Fire Control
> -Rate of Fire
> -Grouping (rounds landing closest together at great distance)
> ...



By 1941 both ships have top edge firecontroll as a system. The rate of fire would help Bismarck, as both the initial rate of fire would be slightly higher (shorter time of flight figures allows shorter salvo intervals in the rangefinding period) as would be the peak rate during effective "full" shooting.
With regards to Grouping, I believe that NC is at an advantage. The US 16"/45 firing a 2700lbs projectile at low velocity is a very good combination and NC went through her gunnery trials, unlike Bismarck, which missed her gunnery trials safe two operational training shootings. Bismarck´s gunnery crew couldn´t be sure of her low salvo dispersion (this actually was testified at Tirpitz gunnery trials later) altough they appeared to have a reasonable idea of it.

NC´s secondary guns are not much of a thread to Bismarck. At first they do lack the range to be of much consequence (17 Kyards), and second, they do lack the punch against Bismarck´s protective scheme. Her non vital ship ends, the zitadell protected hull, the armoured weather deck, the exposed vitals and even her secondary turrets are close to immune vs. 5"/38 for all except point blanc ranges. NC is quite in an opposite condition, her RF´s, 2nd guns and upper zitadell hull do only have splinter protection against 6" rounds and their comm tubes are unprotected. Her ship ends are soft and only her armoured weatherdeck allows a degree of protection at ranges below 19.000 yards. The 5.9"/55 has a range of 25 Kyards, the tertiary 4.1"/65 has a range of 19 Kyards).

Penetration and armour would require some extra thoughts but basically, both ships do reflect their navies thread scenarios well and are optimized for different operational conditions.


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## Freebird (Feb 22, 2008)

> The question I would wonder about is between a North Carolina and Bismark class, which has the superior:
> 
> -Fire Control
> -Rate of Fire
> ...



And how would you compare Bismarck vs. Nelson {or Rodney} in those?


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## renrich (Feb 22, 2008)

Del, it sticks in my mind that the 38000 yard shot took place in the Med. It may have been one of the Queen Elisabeths. The 40 mm Bofors were beginning to show up on US ships in 1942-43. They replaced the 1.1 quads. Interesting side note. One of my uncle's cruisers, CA 25, Salt Lake City, went into Pearl Harbor in 1943 for extensive repairs. Without authorisation from BuShips, her officers talked the navy yard in Pearl Harbor into giving her a quad 40 mm mount amidships and she left two of her four scout planes ashore to offset the weight and balance problem. It would have been interesting to have had an encounter between Alaska and Scharnhorst. The German ship was somewhat larger than the US ship at 32000 tons versus 27500 tons. The Alaska would have a two knot speed edge while Scharnhorst had a high proportion of her weight devoted to armor. Her side armor was actually thicker than that of Bismarck at 14 inches. Side armor of Alaska was 9 inches while turrets had almost 13 inches. Scharnhorst would have needed heavier armor as the Alaska had heavier guns with very modern 12 inch rifles. My guess is that unless the Scharnhorst was lucky like Bismarck was she would have succumbed to Alaska. Exeter took several hits from 11 inchers in her battle with Graf Spee and kept going. Actually Alaska was armored very much like the British battle cruisers in WW1 and they handled hits from 11 inchers quite well except for the turret and handling room problems. Presumably that would not be a problem with Alaska. Probably the fire control of Alaska would give it an edge with it's longer range guns.


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## Henk (Feb 22, 2008)

The Bismarck was great for her time and was a great all round gun platform for a battleship and was thus very powerful when set loose. 

The Nelson had a lot of problems in her design and if you look at the battle against the Bismarck where the Rodney had structure problems after the battle that none of the other battleships had.

The Japanese had big guns and great armor, but they did not have the right tactics in using them.


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## delcyros (Feb 23, 2008)

renrich said:


> Del, it sticks in my mind that the 38000 yard shot took place in the Med. It may have been one of the Queen Elisabeths.



The max. range of the UK 15"/42 was 32.000 yards (supercharges were never issued to ships with an elevation of 30 deg. and as it appears were never used operationally). The max. range of the UK 14"/45 was 36.500 yards and 38.000 yards with supercharges (never to be used on them operationally). The max. range of the UK 16"/45 finally was 38.000 yards. Basically, it should have been Nelson or Rodney but I have not found any mention of a long range gunnery action of them.



> The 40 mm Bofors were beginning to show up on US ships in 1942-43. They replaced the 1.1 quads. Interesting side note. One of my uncle's cruisers, CA 25, Salt Lake City, went into Pearl Harbor in 1943 for extensive repairs. Without authorisation from BuShips, her officers talked the navy yard in Pearl Harbor into giving her a quad 40 mm mount amidships and she left two of her four scout planes ashore to offset the weight and balance problem.


That´s very interesting. Thanks for sharing this information with us, Renrich!
The 40mm Bofors (belt fed version) was also retrofitted on Prinz Eugen, demonstrating that it was considered to be the best medium AAA, by allies axis. Whether or not they used mine rounds on them, I don´t know.


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## Freebird (Feb 23, 2008)

delcyros said:


> So You are taking Bismarck´s gunnery at her final battle as representative with the conditions of the engagement? I take this as a methodical mistake. *Comparing Bismarck with PoW is more even.*



If we were only comparing FC at this one battle, yes. I'm saying that the "best" British Battleship in combat was the Nelson class, not the K.G.V.'s 



delcyros said:


> *PoW´s gunnery was excellent*, if not outstanding at danmark street and deserves to be mentioned in this capacity. Rodneys after action report notes that Bismarck´s 2nd salvo would have straddled her, not bad, too.
> *Rodney´s FC was very good*. But it´s excellence derives from the more advanced radarset rather than from the FC, itselve.



that's my point though, the better British radar makes up for the superior German FC system. I don't think FC would be a deciding factor in a clean match between Rodney Bismarck, guns, armour position would all be factored in, and luck would play a large part too.




delcyros said:


> There are a number of reasons to classify Hood as the worlds first fast battleship. It features wwI design charackteristics. But unlike the ww1 BC´s, it has BB -style armement and even better armour protection than any ww1 BB. It combines firepower, protection and excellent speed for the costs of excessive displacement, much like the later Iowas from a design layout point of view.



I can agree with you about halfway here, the Hood was overdue for an overhaul at the ship yards, which would have included increasing the deck armour, a recognized weakness by the Admiralty. If it had been completed then Hood could be considered the equivilent of a "fast BB". I also don't think Hood's protection was better than the WW1 "Q. E.'s"

I found an interesting analysis of Hood's destruction

Loss of HMS Hood - Part 1



Henk said:


> The Nelson had a lot of problems in her design and if you look at the battle against the Bismarck where the Rodney had structure problems after the battle that none of the other battleships had.



What problems are you talking about?



delcyros said:


> Very well said, Arsenal. The reason I didn´t voted for Richelieu is a single one: Inacceptable large dispersion patterns of her main battery. Straddling somthing would be easy with a mean dispersion of 1.450 - 1.700 m but hitting a completely different matter (You would need staistically six times more straddles in Richelieu to land a hit on BB sized targets than in Hood or Bismarck). I prefer ships which could land closely spaced salvo patterns like the UK 15"/42, the US 16"/45 or the german 15"/52 in a one on one engagement.
> 
> 
> best regards,
> delc



Delcyros Do you think the fact that Richelieu had quad gun turrets was a factor on her large dispersal? How good was the performance the KGV class quad turrets? {once they were working!) I've always thought that the KGV's should have had 3 x triple 15" turrets instead of the design that they did.


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## delcyros (Feb 23, 2008)

freebird said:


> If we were only comparing FC at this one battle, yes. I'm saying that the "best" British Battleship in combat was the Nelson class, not the K.G.V.'s (...) that's my point though, the better British radar makes up for the superior German (?) FC system. I don't think FC would be a deciding factor in a clean match between Rodney Bismarck, guns, armour position would all be factored in, and luck would play a large part too.


But is that true? Rodney´s action log against Bismarck showed clearly that she achieved straddles much later than PoW at DS and DoY at NortCape. Her FC lacks compared with Bismarck: 15ft. RF vs 34.7ft RF, an FC table vs analogous FC computer with integrated input, this list could be continued...
Rodney also had only ONE engagement, the KGV class had several.
Finally, Rodney was very, very lucky not to get hit. Her armour scheme is defective. The innermounted, inclined main belt does add protection only FOR THE UPPER HULL. It terminates 2 ft. below dwl. ANY IMPACT ON THE WATERLINE AT DISTANCES, AT WHICH THE BELT SHOULD STOP THE PROJECTILE OTHERWISE WILL END UP GOING UNDER THE BELT WELL INTO THE VITALS UNHINDERED. The drawing below is for a projectile with an angle of fall of 16 deg (=ca. 21.000 yards for the 15"/52, if hit on the belt, the projectile achieves partial penetration out to 20.000 yards). The side protection therefore has no immune zone at all for the embedded vitals (machinery spaces magazines).
The turrets are reasonably well protected, the barbettes are not. The 15" barbettes are only above the unarmoured weatherdeck, below the deck it´s two deck deep only 12" thick, which will be defeated out to 30.000 yards and thus beyond any fighting distances. This is important because these thinner barbettes are not shielded by additional citadell armour and weatherdeck armour. It will attract flukes. The CT, too, is only 12" thick. The deck armour over magazines is excellent but the deck armour over machinery spaces is just mediocre and may be defeated starting from 24.000 yards. Finally I would like to stress that the whole waterline length is unprotected (the belt is innermounted) and thus subject to off centre flooding. Add in the UK philosophy of low metacentric stability and You end up with a design asking for problems.



> I also don't think Hood's protection was better than the WW1 "Q. E.'s"


 Can I ask You to elaborate Your opinion?


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## Freebird (Feb 23, 2008)

delcyros said:


> Can I ask You to elaborate Your opinion?



Hmmm that's what I had read in reference, but now I'm wondering...

Are you saying that the Hood had a better armour scheme than the Q.E.'s? After the Hood's first reconstruction or before? Did they not have better deck armour? Or did they have design flaws as well?

Two questions Delcyros. I'd be interested to hear your opinion



 delcyros said:


> The reason I didn´t vote for Richelieu is a single one: Inacceptable large dispersion patterns of her main battery. Straddling somthing would be easy with a mean dispersion of 1.450 - 1.700 m but hitting a completely different matter (You would need staistically six times more straddles in Richelieu to land a hit on BB sized targets than in Hood or Bismarck). I prefer ships which could land closely spaced salvo patterns like the UK 15"/42, the US 16"/45 or the german 15"/52 in a one on one engagement.



*1. Are quad turrets inaccurate because of the 4 guns, or is that just a problem with the Richelieu?*



freebird said:


> Delcyros Do you think the fact that Richelieu had quad gun turrets was a factor on her large dispersal? How good was the performance the KGV class quad turrets? {once they were working!)



*2. Could wing turrets be mounted in a modern {1940's} battleship without compromising stability structural integrity?* {using better design methods of construction} Or are wing turrets inherently flawed?


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## delcyros (Feb 23, 2008)

freebird said:


> Hmmm that's what I had read in reference, but now I'm wondering...
> 
> Are you saying that the Hood had a better armour scheme than the Q.E.'s? After the Hood's first reconstruction or before? Did they not have better deck armour? Or did they have design flaws as well?



I am a firm believer that Hoods reputation is reduced unjustifiedly by her rapid demise at denmark street. If You compare Hoods armour layout with that of Nagato, Mackensen class BC´s (also approaches to a fast BB) and Dunkerque, she comes out best. If you set her up against Maryland class BB´s, it´s more difficult to tell in between. I am tempted to give the Marylands an edge due to their consistent armour scheme but it depends on the condition. Only the Nelson appears to be solidly better, but not decisevely better, and her armour scheme was terribly flawed and recognized for poor compromisses. HMS HOOD was better protected against a larger number of threads but definetely had some weak points remaining.
Hood has compared to the QE´s: A) more armour weight (relative absolute), B) better armour quality (esspeccially for the homogenious armour), C) a much better distribution of armour and D) a more thoroughly laid out scheme in space.

a. exposed vitals:
a.a. -turret faces (Hood: 15"; QE: 13"); turret roofs (Hood 5" flat, QE: 5" sloped)
a.b. -barbettes above wd. (Hood 15"; QE: 9-10"); barbettes below 1st (Hood: 6" - 9"; QE: 6" - 9"); barbettes above ad. (Hood 3" - 9"; QE: 4" - 6")
a.c. - CT (Hood: 10"; QE: 11"), comm tubes (Hood: 3"; QE: 4")

exposed vitals: other than the CT, the turrets and barbettes of Hood enjoi substantially more armour protection than those of the QE´s.

b. embedded vitals:
b.a. side protection main belt (Hood 13" inclined 12 deg. (=effectively 14.5 to 15.8" vertical, depending on impact angle); QE: 13" vertical), both are very shallow. Lower side belt (Hood: 3"; QE: none); Upper side belt (Hood 7" inclined 12 deg.; QE: 13" tapered to 6" vertical); citadell armour (Hood 5" inclined 12 deg.; QE: 6" DECLINED!)
b.b. ship ends: (Hood: 3" to 4" contured; QE: 4" - 5" contured)
b.c. internal side protection: QE:1" slope and the 2" torpedo bulkhead.
Hood: extensive internal protection: slopes 2" followed by 2" torpedo bulkhead and another 2" armoured bulkhead. 
b.d. armoured weatherdeck (Hood: .75" to 2"; QE: 1")
b.e. main armour deck (Hood: 2" - 2.5"; QE: 1.25" - 2")
b.f. lower armour deck (Hood: 1.5" to 2" machinery, 3" magazines; QE: 1" machinery magazines)

embedded vitals: substantial advantage Hood. Altough partly flawed (a projectile may pass the upper side belt and the slope afterwards with luck as it seems happened at DS), this flaw was not uncommon for other ships (QE, Nagato). The inclined main armour belt increases it´s effectiveness and stopping power against incoming projectiles.



> 1. Are quad turrets inaccurate because of the 4 guns, or is that just a problem with the Richelieu?


Without having seen sources or investigations what actually was the source of the problem, I would say that it was a design related problem. Four gun turrets are more difficult to construct in a sense to assure low element interferences and it is possible that this design was somehow messed up. But the gun itselfe may contribute to the problem. The Dunkerques, however does not have such an overly large pattern, so it cannot be a quad only problem. Low dispersion is a design aim which often was not reached in the first by some of the innovative, pioneering steps (Nelson-class, Richelieu).



> 2. Could wing turrets be mounted in a modern {1940's} battleship without compromising stability structural integrity? {using better design methods of construction} Or are wing turrets inherently flawed?


It is possible. But I don´t think it would have been advantageous. Internal space is compromised and the expansion space of the tds is deleted when an wing turret is implemented, which was the principal reason why those designs have been abandoned when underwater threads became important.


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## Henk (Feb 23, 2008)

The turrets of the Rodney bounced out of their mountings and the interior of the ship was so badly damaged that she could never face a enemy battleship again. There were a lot of flooding and everything on the walls of the ship popped off.

Read the after battle report of the American crew that was on board her taking the ship back to the US for refit.


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## Lucky13 (Feb 23, 2008)

Was tripple gun turrets the best way to go, compared to dubble and quad turrets?


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## Kurfürst (Feb 23, 2008)

freebird said:


> that's my point though, the better British radar makes up for the superior German FC system. I don't think FC would be a deciding factor in a clean match between Rodney Bismarck, guns, armour position would all be factored in, and luck would play a large part too.



British radar wasnt really better than the German one in 1941. As I understand, the British sets were primarly search radars, and their bearing accuracy was not soo good as the Seetakt sets, which were primarly designed as gunnery radars. 

Friedman has more, I`d have to researh it a bit.

@ Delcyros, 

Thanks for the Nelson armor scheme, I had no idea this design had such big gaps on its armor protection.. the price for big guns and a few thick plates at such displacement..!


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## Henk (Feb 23, 2008)

Double in my opinion is the best. To place all of your guns in one spot is not such a great idea.


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## Udet (Feb 23, 2008)

Freebird...your comment that Bismarck scored no hits against the British battleships during her last stand presented perhaps as "evidence" that would indicate "poor" gunnery systems is 100% flawed.

It reminds me of the only combat action the Jean Bart had during the war against the USS Massachusetts. The Jean Bart albeit immobilized at a pier in the harbor -plus being incomplete- opened fire that was everything but inaccurate even if no hits were scored on US vessels -her fire came close to hitting the USS Augusta though-. The Massachusetts and other Navy vessels had the advantage of speed and possibilities for manouvering, while the French gunners had to man the turrets of a platform deprived of any speed and maneuvering.

Well, Bismarck found herself in a nearly identical situation during her last stand even is her speed wasn´t zero as it happened to Jean Bart.

So my conclusions...Number one: had Bismarck not been hit by the Swordfish torpedo, the frenzied Home Fleet would have never made contact with her in the first place due to the skilled command of Lütjenz and her superior speed if compared with the slow HMS Rodney and even the modern HMS King George V.

Number Two: if for some reason the Home Fleet could have made contact with a Bismarck running at full speed, then i do not want to think of the outcome of such battle.

I will say the same thing again and again: all that effort and commitment invested to downplay a battleship that during her first battle, when confronting 2 enemy battleships, turned one into a flare and horribly pounded the other -that could have been finished off as well- seems...odd.


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## Soren (Feb 23, 2008)

I have to agree with Udet.

Hitting a ship which course is 100% predictable is easy, but hitting a ship which course is unpredictable and meanwhile not being able to lay all guns on because you can't steer you own vessel is a million times harder. Now on top of that the Bismarck didn't just have to face one foe, no it had to fight off three first rate battleships including allot of smaller cruisers and the like, an impossible task for any battleship.

The Bismarck showcased its superiority in the 1 vs 2 duel against the HMS HOOD RODNEY, in which Bismarck sunk one and completely mauled the other. 

I'm not sure any Battleship throughout the war could compete with Bismarck Tirpitz when it came to gunnery, they were just amazingly accurate.


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## Freebird (Feb 23, 2008)

Kurfürst said:


> British radar wasnt really better than the German one in 1941. As I understand, the British sets were primarly search radars, and their bearing accuracy was not soo good as the Seetakt sets, which were primarly designed as gunnery radars.
> 
> Friedman has more, I`d have to researh it a bit.



Kurfurst, as I understand the radar was superior. By I'm not an expert in radar, if you find data to the contrary I'd be interested to see.



delcyros said:


> Comparing Bismarck with PoW is more even. PoW´s gunnery was excellent, if not outstanding at danmark street and deserves to be mentioned in this capacity. *Rodney´s FC was very good. But it´s excellence derives from the more advanced radarset rather than from the FC, itselve.*





Henk said:


> The turrets of the Rodney bounced out of their mountings and the interior of the ship was *so badly damaged that she could never face a enemy battleship again*. There were a lot of flooding and everything on the walls of the ship popped off.
> 
> Read the after battle report of the American crew that was on board her taking the ship back to the US for refit.



Where did you get this information Henk? The Rodney was damaged in a storm in Dec 1940, was on her way to the US before rushing back to chase Bismarck. *After her refit she escorted convoys bound for Malta {Halberd Pedestal}, and escorted the landings for Husky Avalanche {Sicily Salerno} to prevent the Italian battleships from interfering. Hardly the place to send a ship that "couldn't face an enemy battleship"* I've never seen this claim, what is your source?



Udet said:


> Freebird...your comment that Bismarck scored no hits against the British battleships during her last stand presented perhaps as "evidence" that would indicate "poor" gunnery systems is 100% flawed.
> 
> Udet, read the whole thread, *I never claimed that Bismarck had poor gunnery*, I've agreed with delcyros that the Germans had excellent FC.
> 
> ...



*Correct, I agree with you 100% on this.* Lutjens was very astute in finding a way to shake off the British cruisers, and could not have been caught before France. 



> Number Two: if for some reason the Home Fleet could have made contact with a Bismarck running at full speed, then i do not want to think of the outcome of such battle.



The Bismarck was capable of running at higher speed, the damage was to the rudder, not the propellers. If the Bismarck had been caught by "The Home Fleet" 4 battleships 2 Battlecruisers, 5 heavy cruisers? {Rodney, Ramillies, King G.V., Repulse, Renown} I think the outcome would be the same, although the British ships may have been damaged. 
. 


> I will say the same thing again and again: all that effort and commitment invested to downplay a battleship that during her first battle, when confronting 2 enemy battleships, turned one into a flare and horribly pounded the other -that could have been finished off as well- seems...odd.



*Udet, don't misunderstand me I'm not "downplaying" Bismarck, it was a very well designed ship.* {not surprising for German  } I posted a poll to see what opinions were, as there has been a myth that developed about it as a "supership", biggest guns, biggest Battleship etc. that simply are not true. In naval warfare you build the best ship that you can but as delcyros said alot of it turns out to be chance.



delcyros said:


> *The destruction of HMS Hood was unlucky and the engagement could easily have outturned with Bismarck resting on the seabed.*


*Thanks for your excellent data Delcyros, very helpful*



Soren said:


> I have to agree with Udet.
> 
> Hitting a ship which course is 100% predictable is easy, but hitting a ship which course is unpredictable and meanwhile not being able to lay all guns on because you can't steer you own vessel is a million times harder. Now on top of that the Bismarck didn't just have to face one foe, no it had to fight off *three first rate battleships* including allot of smaller cruisers and the like, an impossible task for any battleship.



The "King George" battleships thank you for the endorsement,  but to be honest the design of the only British battleships in WWII that were newer than 1920's left alot to be desired. 



> The Bismarck showcased its superiority in the 1 vs 2 duel against the HMS HOOD RODNEY, *{you mean the Prince of Wales here}* in which Bismarck sunk one and completely mauled the other.



As delcyros has said it was an unlucky hit on the Hood {although the Admiralty's earlier warnings about the armour weakness at the hull/deck joint were ignored}

And as for the Prince of Wales, some of the problems of this unlucky ship stem from Churchill interfering with the proper "working up" of the ship and partly led to the problems with the guns, over half of which were out of action by malfunction, even without being hit by Bismarck. TI would point out the damage to the bridge FC of the PoW was serious, but the ship was able to stay with the Norfolk Suffolk and could have re-joined the battle if needed. {apparently they fixed the damn gun problems!  }



> I'm not sure any Battleship throughout the war could compete with Bismarck Tirpitz when it came to gunnery, they were just amazingly accurate.



I guess we'll never know at this point.


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## Glider (Feb 24, 2008)

Udet said:


> So my conclusions...Number one: had Bismarck not been hit by the Swordfish torpedo, the frenzied Home Fleet would have never made contact with her in the first place due to the skilled command of Lütjenz and her superior speed if compared with the slow HMS Rodney and even the modern HMS King George V.


Quite possibly, but the British had the ability to shadow her and her effectiveness would have been significantly been reduced as she was the hunted, not the hunter.



> Number Two: if for some reason the Home Fleet could have made contact with a Bismarck running at full speed, then i do not want to think of the outcome of such battle.


This is being a little negative on the RN. The Bimark lost the front two turrets to one hit from the Rodney, and C turret was lost (not penetrated but knocked out) by a 14in shell. The British were capable of inflicting severe damage to the Bismark and the result would have been the same.

Individually the Bismark had a clear advantage, but to take on two was to much.[/QUOTE]



> I will say the same thing again and again: all that effort and commitment invested to downplay a battleship that during her first battle, when confronting 2 enemy battleships, turned one into a flare and horribly pounded the other -that could have been finished off as well- seems...odd.



I understand your view but the fact is that the Hood didn't play a part in the battle leaving the POW on her own. Had the Hood stayed in the fight then the outcome could have been very different, certainly the Bismark would have taken more damage.

Its also worth remembering that all ships have a weak spot and the fact that the 18in torpedo did so much damage was down to a design flaw in the Bismark. The damage was a lot more than the stuck rudders.
There was severe damage to the entire stem of the ship and it is believed that part of the stem of the ship collapsed onto the rudders. This was an endemic failure on all German heavy ships and similar damage happened on the Prinz Eugen and Lutzow.


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## Kurfürst (Feb 24, 2008)

Type 279

Essentially Type 79 plus an Accurate Ranging Panel RBL10 (range 7nm), produced in 1940. It was credited with a range of 65-95nm on an airplane at 16,000ft, 27-40nm at 3000ft, 16-24nm at 1000ft and 5-7.5nm at 100ft. Range accuracy was 50yds on the detailed scale between 2000 and 14,000yds and bearing accuracy, as in Type 79, was 5°. As in the earlier radar, it used 7-30-microsecond pulses (peak power 70kW, PRF 50) and range discrimination was 500yds.

Type 284

Main battery surface gunnery radar, actually the first of the 282-285 series. The first production set was fitted to HMS Nelson in June 1940 after tests late in 1939 showed detection of a convoy at 30,000yds and of a cruiser at 18,000. The first production set was installed aboard King George V, with a total of 24 dipoles (12 in Nelson). The total installation consisted of a pair of 21ft x 2ft 6in trough reflectors, each with 24 dipoles (one to send, one to receive) fixed to the director; in some ships only 12 dipoles per antenna could be accommodated, in an 11 ft installation. Peak power was 25kW (1.7-microsecond pulses, PRF 500) and claimed accuracy was 200yds, 1-2° on the 24,000yd scale and 500yds on the 48,000yd scale. The beam was 8° wide.

Seetakt

The first of the German naval radars, installed in 1936 aboard the 'pocket battleship' Graf Spee, operating at 80cm (368mc/s). Peak power was 7kW, for a range of 10nm against large ships (6 against cruisers). The antenna was a mattress fixed to the rangefinder, its upper part used for reception and its lower for transmission. The reception portion was divided in two tor more accurate bearing measurement, and accuracy was 0.2°.

FuMO 21

Light cruiser and destroyer radar, originally designated FMG 39G(gL), on a bridge pedestal, with an effective range of about 10nm. First tested in the cruiser Nurnberg. It was similar in characteristics to the other 1939 radars, FuMO 22 and 23. Peak power was 8kW (PRF 500 5-microsecond pulses), and antenna dimensions 4 x 2m.

FuMO 22

The standard German capital ship radar of 1939, accurate to within 5° and capable of detecting a battleship at 13nm. Originally designated FMG 39G(gO).

FuMO 23

Radar for mounting on a fire-control director, originally designated FMG 39G(gP). Mounted aboard Bismarck and Prinz Eugen.

FuMO 24

First of the improved 1940 series of radars, designed to be mounted on a pedestal on a ship's bridge. Peak power was 8kW and antenna dimensions 6 x 2m. In 1944 many were upgraded to FuMO 32 by the replacement of their transmitters by 125kW units. The others in this series were FuMO 25 through 28, and they replaced the FuMO 21 series. However, naval radar production after 1941 was very limited, so that these 1940 sets remained through the war. By mid-April 1941 all German destroyers had either this set or its immediate predecessor, FuMO 21.

FuMO 25

Mast antenna, with a 6 x 2m or 4 x 2m antenna, otherwise equivalent to FuMO 24. Many were upgraded to FuMO 33 in 1944.

FuMO 26

Radar for fire control directors, using a new horizontally-polarized 6.6 x 3.2m antenna. It was credited with a range of 20-25km. By 1945 the set aboard Prinz Eugen had been upgraded to a peak power of 60kW (4-microsecond pulses) and had a range accuracy of 55 yds and a bearing accuracy of 0.25° - the latter betraying its fire control origins. Some were upgraded to FuMO 34 (125kW) in 1944, range increasing to 40-50 km.


Type of radar sets used on vessels, see KBismarck.com - Bismarck Technical Data and Battleship Comparison


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## Kurfürst (Feb 24, 2008)

Glider said:


> The Bimark lost the front two turrets to one hit from the Rodney, and C turret was lost (not penetrated but knocked out) by a 14in shell.



Urban legends repeated over and over on various discussion boards...



> Its also worth remembering that all ships have a weak spot and the fact that the 18in torpedo did so much damage was down to a design flaw in the Bismark. The damage was a lot more than the stuck rudders.
> There was severe damage to the entire stem of the ship and it is believed that part of the stem of the ship collapsed onto the rudders. This was an endemic failure on all German heavy ships and similar damage happened on the Prinz Eugen and Lutzow.



There was no particular design flaw I know of, the stern was a vulnerable spot on any ship. Look at what happened to Prince of Wales from a similiar hit, it literally shred itself apart. Bismarck`s stern certainly did not collapse on the rudder - there are video footage of it, and it shows the power of the explosion meant that some of the rudder and the screws jammed together from this fluke hit. Its open to question to what extent would that matter, if Bismarck wouldn`t have been struck in the afternoon and was facing two British BBs in the next morning, leaving no time or possibility to conduct repairs, or even just blow off the screw.


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## Soren (Feb 24, 2008)

LoL thanks for the corrections Freebird, as you might have noticed Battleships aint my main interest 

Still amazing gunnery displayed by Bismarck, esp. considering it was facing two battleships. That the Bismarck was sunk in the final battle is no surprise, no battleship would've stood any chance in its position, its course was predictable and it was unable to lay all guns on target.


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## Glider (Feb 24, 2008)

Kurfürst said:


> _Re Bismarks A and B turrets being knocked out early in the battle by Rodney _*Urban legends repeated over and over on various discussion boards*...


At 0857 the Bismarck sustained her first hit. Five minutes later a 16-inch shell from the Rodney apparently put the German battleship's A and B turrets out of action Source German Battleship Bismarck, sinking of
At 8:59am one of the shells from HMS Rodney's 16 inch guns exploded near Anton and Bruno, knocking them both out of action. Sourcehttp://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/4433/history/bismarck.htm
At 0908, the forward rangefinder and turrets "Anton" and "Bruno" were put out of action. Source KBismarck.com - Operation Rheinbung This doesn't state the Rodney and the timing is a little out, but its close.




> There was no particular design flaw I know of, the stern was a vulnerable spot on any ship. Look at what happened to Prince of Wales from a similiar hit, it literally shred itself apart. Bismarck`s stern certainly did not collapse on the rudder - there are video footage of it, and it shows the power of the explosion meant that some of the rudder and the screws jammed together from this fluke hit. Its open to question to what extent would that matter, if Bismarck wouldn`t have been struck in the afternoon and was facing two British BBs in the next morning, leaving no time or possibility to conduct repairs, or even just blow off the screw.



We believe that part of the stern collapsed onto the rudders, as happened with the Prinz Eugen and armored cruiser Lützow, or was damaged in such a way that it was impossible to steer the ship by either manual or mechanical means. It would have been necessary to cut away structure which was covered by surging water. In any event, the repair of such damage was beyond the capability and material provided aboard the Bismarck, even if weather and battle conditions had been more favorable. The stern structure was massively damaged and eventually failed. 

There is remarkable similarity between the Bismarck damage and a similar torpedo hit on the stern of Prinz Eugen on 23 February 1942. Dr. Erwin Strohbusch, who directed the repairs of this heavy cruiser in Norway, wrote to us that this incident, and an earlier one on the armored cruiser Lützow, whose stern also collapsed from a torpedo hit, indicated a structural flaw in the stern design of German armored ships, heavy cruisers, battleships, and battlecruisers. Improvements were made to the stern structures of Admiral Hipper, Lützow, Tirpitz, Admiral Scheer and Scharnhorst during 1942-1943
Source Bismarck's Final Battle - Part 2

Kurfurst I have supported my statements with the examples and the Sources. Can I ask you to support your assertions that its Urban Legend?


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## Henk (Feb 24, 2008)

freebird said:


> Where did you get this information Henk? The Rodney was damaged in a storm in Dec 1940, was on her way to the US before rushing back to chase Bismarck. *After her refit she escorted convoys bound for Malta {Halberd Pedestal}, and escorted the landings for Husky Avalanche {Sicily Salerno} to prevent the Italian battleships from interfering. Hardly the place to send a ship that "couldn't face an enemy battleship"* I've never seen this claim, what is your source?



The Rodney never got her refit mate and Go and look at the Books regarding the Bismarck, Robert D Ballard's book had it in it and why dint the other British Battleships have these problems. Look it up.

The rudders jammed into the screw of the the ship and opened a hole in the rudder control room in the stern and thus they could not do anything for the rudders.

If you look at the last dive to the Bismarck you will see that the torpedo's never actually penetrated the ship, the armor wall just behind the outer skin of the ship was not damaged at all, only the external skin.

Oh if you look at the wreck you can see that A and B turrets were knocked out by a hit from a 16 inch gun.


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## delcyros (Feb 24, 2008)

It is pretty clear from evidence of her final battle, that Bismarck lost it´s A + B turrets, one of them for the duration of the battle, the other temporarely, to one or more 16" hits from a salvo which straddled the foreship of Bismarck at about 8:58 very much like Glider said. The turrets of Bismarck, to stress one negative aspect of her protection, are not particularely well protected. The 14.2" faceplate is just average and the 7" slope is outright weak. The conclusion is that the turrets may be knocket out at about any distance by a projectile hitting either the weak -for it´s distance- faceplate, slope or roof, respectively.

I am not sure if the damage on her stern rudder as it can be seen on the wreckage today is battle related. According to Müllenheim Rechenberg, the propulsion plant was working well beyond expectations after beeing torpedoed. From flank ahaed to flank reverse on all shafts in different combinations. An attempt to regain controll with means of applying different loads to the shafts. The picture of the wreckage, however, shows that the rudder jammed the centre shaft and this is in direct conflict with Müllenheim Rechenbergs account. It is more plausible that the rudder jammed the shaft during impact on the seabed in the state as it can be seen today.
The stern appears to have been collapsed somewhen between the sinking and the impact on the seabed.


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## Glider (Feb 24, 2008)

Henk said:


> The turrets of the Rodney bounced out of their mountings and the interior of the ship was so badly damaged that she could never face a enemy battleship again. There were a lot of flooding and everything on the walls of the ship popped off.
> 
> Read the after battle report of the American crew that was on board her taking the ship back to the US for refit.



Henk
I would like to read this report, is it possible to give me a link or name of a book whatever. It would be appreciated as third party views on this type of thing are invaluble.


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## renrich (Feb 24, 2008)

Although Washington is not included in this poll, I would vote for her if she were, as, although the same class, she had an improved armor scheme over North Carolina.


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## Freebird (Feb 24, 2008)

Henk said:


> *The Rodney never got her refit mate* and Go and look at the Books regarding the Bismarck, Robert D Ballard's book had it in it and why dint the other British Battleships have these problems. Look it up.



Your facts are off on this one Henk, it was re-fitted in July 1941, new radars installed.

HMS Rodney
"June 13 1941 - passage to Boston, Mass
July 1941 - under repair refit in Boston Navy Yard
Aug 12 1941 - refit complete. "

HMS Rodney, British battleship, WW2


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## Freebird (Feb 24, 2008)

delcyros said:


> I am a firm believer that Hoods reputation is reduced unjustifiedly by her rapid demise at denmark street. If You compare Hoods armour layout with that of Nagato, Mackensen class BC´s (also approaches to a fast BB) and Dunkerque, she comes out best. If you set her up against Maryland class BB´s, it´s more difficult to tell in between. I am tempted to give the Marylands an edge due to their consistent armour scheme but it depends on the condition. Only the Nelson appears to be solidly better, but not decisevely better, and her armour scheme was terribly flawed and recognized for poor compromisses. HMS HOOD was better protected against a larger number of threads but definetely had some weak points remaining.





delcyros said:


> Finally, Rodney was very, very lucky not to get hit. Her armour scheme is defective. The innermounted, inclined main belt does add protection only FOR THE UPPER HULL. It terminates 2 ft. below dwl. ANY IMPACT ON THE WATERLINE AT DISTANCES, AT WHICH THE BELT SHOULD STOP THE PROJECTILE OTHERWISE WILL END UP GOING UNDER THE BELT WELL INTO THE VITALS UNHINDERED. The drawing below is for a projectile with an angle of fall of 16 deg (=ca. 21.000 yards for the 15"/52, if hit on the belt, the projectile achieves partial penetration out to 20.000 yards). The side protection therefore has no immune zone at all for the embedded vitals (machinery spaces magazines).
> The turrets are reasonably well protected, the barbettes are not. The 15" barbettes are only above the unarmoured weatherdeck, below the deck it´s two deck deep only 12" thick, which will be defeated out to 30.000 yards and thus beyond any fighting distances. This is important because these thinner barbettes are not shielded by additional citadell armour and weatherdeck armour. It will attract flukes. The CT, too, is only 12" thick. The deck armour over magazines is excellent but the deck armour over machinery spaces is just mediocre and may be defeated starting from 24.000 yards. Finally I would like to stress that the whole waterline length is unprotected (the belt is innermounted) and thus subject to off centre flooding. Add in the UK philosophy of low metacentric stability and You end up with a design asking for problems.




There is something I have been wondering about, it was standard naval tactics to try to bring your broadside to bear on the enemy, as most Battleships had 4 x 2, or 3 x 3 main guns, fore aft. But with the Nelson class it was almost equally effective approaching the enemy 10 or 15 deg. off the bow, as it would be to broadside. If you were improving a design like the "Nelson" class, obviously extending the belt would be better, but what about inclined deck armour? if you *always* expected to be fired on from the bows, rather than at your broadside, couldn't the ship be designed with heavy inclined deck armour, so that any incoming shells would be impacting at a high oblique angle? I'm thinking that the engine shp displacement would be higher of course, to carry the increased armour. To compensate for the heavier deck armour, if needed, even a slightly weaker {but extended lower} belt, as the ship would plan to *always* be in action with at least 1 or 2 other British BC's or BB's and would try to *never* expose the broadside.


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## Freebird (Feb 24, 2008)

Soren said:


> LoL thanks for the corrections Freebird, as you might have noticed Battleships aint my main interest


Hey no problem, we all make typos errors sometimes.  *What was the greatest flaw in the Bismarck?* {IMHO} The fact that Germany never completed a CVL to cover for the "raiding forces" . They laid down "Seydlitz" 5 months after "Prince Eugen", which was completed end of July 1940. "Seydlitz" was planned to convert to a light fast carrier, but was obviously not given much priority, as it was never completed. It could have been finished by the spring of 1941, and sent with Bismarck. I don't imagine the "Swordfish" attack on Bismarck would go quite so well if there had been a dozen Me 109's as CAP.


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## renrich (Feb 24, 2008)

The greatest flaw in the Bismarck was having Hitler as the C in C in name and in fact. He knew nothing about naval warfare and wasn't emotionally suited to be C in C. To use a CV as an escort for a BB would be getting it all backwards. During WW2, the BB was no longer "the" capital ship. It was the escort and support for the CV.


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## Freebird (Feb 24, 2008)

renrich said:


> *The greatest flaw in the Bismarck was having Hitler as the C in C in name and in fact.* He knew nothing about naval warfare and wasn't emotionally suited to be C in C.



You have a point there.



renrich said:


> *To use a CV as an escort for a BB would be getting it all backwards.* During WW2, the BB was no longer "the" capital ship. It was the escort and support for the CV.



Only in the Pacific Ren, in the Med the Battleship was still King, mainly because shore-based airpower could neutralize carrier aircraft. The Germans couldn't hope to have a CV striking force like the Japanese unless they built at least 2 or 3 CV's. The surface ships were quite effective at sinking shipping, especially in distant areas, like the south Atlantic. *IF* the choice was made to use Bismarck, Sharnhorst Eugen as raiders, it would have been sensible to have a CVL as escort. The idea of BB's as escorts for CV's applied more to the wide-open Pacific than it did to the Atlantic or the Med. The Atlantic storms could render aircraft operations difficult for days on end, even if you could launch your TB's, the wave action could make torpedo launch almost impossible. And unguided bombs were almost ineffective against BB's before 1945, unlike CV's. In the Med Battleship actions were more common than CV actions.


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## renrich (Feb 24, 2008)

Freebird, the weather in the North Atlantic was indeed often difficult but it did not prevent CVEs from operating against U-boats. Land based AC made the Med a dangerous arena for all ships. The main reason that there was not the emphasis on carrier warfare in the ETO that there was in the Pacific was that warfare there was continental in nature and there was the availability of land bases for AC and there were not the targets in terms of shipping for the Allies to have used their carriers against. Just think what a nightmare it would have been if the Axis in the ETO had been maritime powers like Japan was and had had the offensive power with carriers that the IJN had. Far fetched as it seems, lets say that Germany and Italy together had a highly trained carrier force with the supporting ships available in 1939. They invade Poland and the war is on. Their Navy sorties and first scours the RN and French from the Med and it becomes an Axis lake and then they go after the RN in the Atlantic. They blockade Britain and the RN has to challenge. They don't even need much help from U-boats and they defeat the RN. The British can't even get the BEF back from France. The only reason the Axis even need BBs is to guard against the enemy slipping up close at night to the carriers while their AC can't operate and for AA support. The war is over and the Axis can then try on the USSR. If Hitler had been smart he would have waited until 1945, like his admirals wanted and built a bunch of carriers. Course the British would not have been asleep nor would the US. Even if the Axis had had navies with the strength of the Central Powers in WW1, with a proportionate strength in carriers, it could have been a different war.


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## Henk (Feb 24, 2008)

Glider said:


> Henk
> I would like to read this report, is it possible to give me a link or name of a book whatever. It would be appreciated as third party views on this type of thing are invaluble.



Sure mate. The Book is THE DISCOVERY OF THE BISMARCK by Robert D. Ballard that also discovered the Titanic. National Geographic also made a documentary program of it.







freebird, a refit is a big thing for a battleship, not just repairs and replacing the radar. That was just a upgrade and repair. Have a look at when the Japanese Navy refitted their old battleships.

Here is the Barbette B and you can see the hit to the rim of the Barbette.






Here is the pictures of the center propeller and the rudder.














And the stern of the Bismarck.


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## timshatz (Feb 25, 2008)

Ren, I think that hit you are talking about was the Warspite hit on the Italian battleship. Think the range of 28K was the number. Hell of a lucky shot, probably had the Italians wondering "Why me?".

Had no idea the Sharnohorst was that heavily armored. Numbers come up more like a BB than a BC. Lucky for all she was somewhat undergunned.


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## timshatz (Feb 25, 2008)

delcyros said:


> It is very high indeed for a major calibre gun. But this figure shouldn´t be overstressed. Typically, average rates of fire were much lower. The peak rate of firing was to be established once repeated straddles have been achieved. It is furthely limited by the range in question (time to elevate the barrels) and thus barely ever achieved. There is photographic evidence from the Schmalenbach movie that Bismarck achieved a cyclic rate of fire of 8 to 9 sec. between main gun half salvos (= peak rate of fire 16 to 18 sec.) for the latter part of a single but decisive minute against Hood, the average rate of fire was at about 1 salvo pm for the whole engagement. Crew performance was decisisve.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Thanks Delc, great post as always.


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## timshatz (Feb 25, 2008)

delcyros said:


> It is very high indeed for a major calibre gun. But this figure shouldn´t be overstressed. Typically, average rates of fire were much lower. The peak rate of firing was to be established once repeated straddles have been achieved. It is furthely limited by the range in question (time to elevate the barrels) and thus barely ever achieved. There is photographic evidence from the Schmalenbach movie that Bismarck achieved a cyclic rate of fire of 8 to 9 sec. between main gun half salvos (= peak rate of fire 16 to 18 sec.) for the latter part of a single but decisive minute against Hood, the average rate of fire was at about 1 salvo pm for the whole engagement. Crew performance was decisisve.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Had not really thought about the affect of secondary armament in a BB slugging match. Then again, when you condsider the Kirishima took at least 50 5" hits (estimated) in it's fight with the Washington, that had to have some cumulative effect. But the Kirishima was a BC and not a BB.


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

Tim, thanks for the reference to Warspite. That is probably the hit I was trying to remember and the distance I quoted was wrong. Actually, the Kirishima and her sisters were rated as BBs because they had been remodeled twice, up armored and reengined with bulges added. However their armor was not on the scale of the US fast battleships. The Scharnhorst was actually somewhat typical of German design during WW1. High proportion of displacement devoted to armor versus gun power and engines. My source for those armor figures is a book called "Fighting Ships of WW2" a relatively recent book published in Britain. I hope it is accurate.


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## Glider (Feb 25, 2008)

The Germans had another advantage given by them by the high ROF. Traditional ranging meant firing , watch for the fall, adjust and by this process find the Target. 
I think I am right in saying that the Bismark fired rapidly so that more than one salvo was in the air at one time. One deliberately over, one on the range and the third low. Watching the fall enabled the guns to be adjusted almost immediately.

Will have to dig out the book that mentions this but I am pretty sure its right.


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

I have a reference which states that the claimed rate of fire for the new German 15 inch was 3 rounds per minute as opposed to 2 per minute for the new British 14 inch. I do believe that the practise of the Bismarck was to fire 4 gun salvoes so that would speed up rate of fire.


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## timshatz (Feb 25, 2008)

renrich said:


> The Scharnhorst was actually somewhat typical of German design during WW1. High proportion of displacement devoted to armor versus gun power and engines. .



Good point. I was thinking that when writing the post. The German BCs at Jutland showed remarkable ability to withstand punishment while the British BCs tended to blow up. Well, at least a few of them. 

Different design philosophies at work. That and different firing theories to say nothing of different propellent.


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## renrich (Feb 25, 2008)

I have a book that details the naval battles of WW1 rather thoroughly plus the battle of Jutland is one of the most interesting battles ever fought, to me. There were many factors in play in WW1 as far as the survivability of warships were concerned. Of course armor was important but the German ships were highly compartmented compared to the RN ships which decreased their habitability but they did not concern themselves with that because they were not intended to spend long periods at sea. I have read that the German seamen in Von Spee's command suffered from habitability concerns. Other factors were the performance of the projectiles, fire control, accuracy of the guns themselves(the British guns tended to droop when they got hot) and also visibility. One, because of the tendency of the RN BCs to blow up(including Hood), would conclude that they were extremely vulnerable and practically deathtraps. However, at Jutland, Beatty's flagship Lion was hit 12 times with heavy shells(11 inch and up) and stayed in the fight all day. One shell opened up Q turret(amidships) but the ship probably was saved by a dying Marine flooding that turret's magazine. Tiger was hit 17 times with heavy shells and 4 times with medium or light shells and kept fighting and Princess Royal received hits from 9 heavy shells. The 3 BCs that blew up only were hit 5 times each by heavy shells and Hood may have only been hit by two 15 inch shells. The ship one would want to be on was New Zealand. The Kiwi BC received not a hit all day. Of course her skipper was wearing a Maori skirt which probably explains her luck. My point is that the BCs could take heavy punishment and keep going, just not in certain places.


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## delcyros (Feb 27, 2008)

renrich said:


> One, because of the tendency of the RN BCs to blow up(including Hood), would conclude that they were extremely vulnerable and practically deathtraps. However, at Jutland, Beatty's flagship Lion was hit 12 times with heavy shells(11 inch and up) and stayed in the fight all day. One shell opened up Q turret(amidships) but the ship probably was saved by a dying Marine flooding that turret's magazine. Tiger was hit 17 times with heavy shells and 4 times with medium or light shells and kept fighting and Princess Royal received hits from 9 heavy shells. The 3 BCs that blew up only were hit 5 times each by heavy shells and Hood may have only been hit by two 15 inch shells. The ship one would want to be on was New Zealand. The Kiwi BC received not a hit all day. Of course her skipper was wearing a Maori skirt which probably explains her luck. My point is that the BCs could take heavy punishment and keep going, just not in certain places.



British Battlecruisers could take punishment, no doubt but not as much as would be desirebale. If You trace down the hits and differ between critical hits and superficial hits, You will find out that the number of superficial hits (funnel, non vital superstructures, upper hull) is pretty large for TIGER and LION, while the number of critical hits is no larger on them than was on INVINCIBLE, INDEFATIGABLE and QUEEN MARY and sometimes outright lower. HMS LION received two critical hits at Doggerbank and was crippled by them and in return had to be towed home. The number of ciritical hits (hits which affected the waterplane, structural integrity or magazines) on german BC´s was substantially higher in comparison and despite them, most were able to return home on their own power to fight another day. Their design encorporated more structural redundancy, excessive metacentric stability, better compartimentation and thicker armour. The fact that the thickest parts of british BC armour (9") did not gave full protection against the rather light german 11" and 12" projectiles casts serious doubt on their ability to engage their direct opposition. Evidence from the three ACR lost at Jutland also point to problems. The one to disengage in crippled condition could not be safed due to progressive flooding and low metacentric height.
If we delete the losses inflicted by the HSF itselfe and british torpedoe-armed destroyers to see in how far the RN dreadnoughts and BC´s contributed we may get a disappointing impression of the engagement: three torpedoboats and the CL-WIESBADEN can be credited to british capital ship gunnery. Another BC (LÜTZOW) was crippled by capital ship gunnery torpedoes from HMS FALMOUTH, was driven to fast in an attempt to leave the theatre and had to be scuttled in the night as a consequence.


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## renrich (Feb 27, 2008)

No question that Germany sacrifised gun caliber and speed for additional armor in her BCs. Better compartmentation at the expense of habitability was important also. Poor performance of the British projectiles may have had consequences also. The results revealed at Jutland that the German decisions were correct as the KM ships proved very durable.


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## Udet (Feb 27, 2008)

Glider, hello.

I do not know wether "weak sterns" made a design "flaw" in German vessels...not even sure if the assertion has been proved beyond reasonable doubt.

What i can say with confidence is that it´d seem the stern section made a weak spot on most combat vessels...have you read about the ill-fated HMS Prince of Wales during her final battle against the land based Japanese aircraft?

Everything seems to indicate HMS Prince of Wales did not fare any better than Bismarck regarding torpedo impacts to the stern section or very close to it for that matter.

One Japanese torpedo that struck the section seem to have doomed the battleship as well; after the impact the ship went "Not under control".

Hits that followed only came to accelerate the process of her going to the bottom of the sea.

Quote:

_
"It is well documented that the Prince of Wales was hit early on in the battle by a torpedo near the stern. The ship ‘whipped’ like a tuning fork and there followed a terrible vibration. In fact, the torpedo hit the bossing of the outer port propeller shaft and broke the shaft at one of the joining flanges." _

and,

_"Prince of Wales was steaming at 25 knots when 9 Bettys appeared low on her port bow, in a moment they released their torpedoes. The battleship frantically shifted from 5.25 secondary armament barrage to small arms rapid fire. The noise was deafening, reaching a crescendo as the planes flew within feet of the guard-rails. Men on the upper deck watched in horror as the tracks of incoming torpedoes drew ever closer. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion, eye witness accounts recall the forward motion of the ship appeared to be halted by the force of this detonation. Being so severe, some of the crew felt the battleship had been thrown in the air.

Within seconds the Prince took on a list of 11 degrees and her speed fell to 15 knots; both her steering gear and main electrical systems had been fatally damage and she could no longer maneuvre with any degree of control. More alarmingly most of the power supplies to her dual-purpose 5.25 guns were inoperative.

AB Alan McIvor was in one of the port 5.25 Gun Turrets (P3). He describes the terrifying noise caused by this explosion.

”A matter of seconds before being hit, we’d been training our gun on one of the planes that had taken part in this first attack. Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion. I can best describe the noise as tons of plate glass shattering on a pavement. Immediately, we lost all power to our gun which was stopped whilst training aft”

The result of this initial strike, which incidentally resulted in two torpedoes finding their target, was severe vibrations began running throughout the Prince. This was traced to a damaged propeller shaft, which had been twisted to such a degree that all the watertight shaft seals had blown and *the propeller blades were tearing the armour plating off the stern* of the battleship. Even though the shaft was immediately shut down, it was too late: the damage was done. *In a short while, as a direct result of the stern torpedo hit, the Prince would take onboard over 18000 tonnes of water. This cruellest of blows effectively ended her fighting capabilities*. From this point on she would only be able to offer token resistance to the Japanese onslaught." _


That "terrible vibration" is cited in several sources i recall consulting; something that apparently was not experienced on Bismarck after the Swordfish torpedo struck her.

In the end it´d appear the Prince of Wales´stern proved much weaker to torpedo impact than Bismarck´s.


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## i-kil-you (Feb 27, 2008)

freebird said:


> Has anyone seen the History channel programs Hunt for the Bismarck?
> 
> The show was on today from A&E's "dogfights" series, great animation, especially the Swordfish attack sequences. However.... There are several obvious errors that seem to keep being repeated about the Bismarck
> 
> ...



thats pretty gay


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## Glider (Feb 28, 2008)

Udet
There is no doubt that the stern of a ship is a weak spot and there is no doubt that the Germans had a particular problem. As a result all the German heavy ships to have major changes done to their stern due to problems encountered when they were damaged. The link I posted earlier in the thread goes into this and includes a contribution from an engineer who was responsible for the repairs.
Re the POW you quotes and statements are correct. I admit that my understanding was that the damaged propeller shaft wasn't immediately stopped resulting in that part of the ship basically tearing itself apart. Clearly my memory is wrong on that point.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (Feb 28, 2008)

i-kil-you said:


> thats pretty gay



A very educated response!


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## ccheese (Feb 28, 2008)

i-kil-you said:


> thats pretty gay



Adler.... You must add this one to the "famous posts" thread....

Charles


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## delcyros (Feb 28, 2008)

Glider said:


> Udet
> There is no doubt that the stern of a ship is a weak spot and there is no doubt that the Germans had a particular problem. As a result all the German heavy ships to have major changes done to their stern due to problems encountered when they were damaged. The link I posted earlier in the thread goes into this and includes a contribution from an engineer who was responsible for the repairs.
> Re the POW you quotes and statements are correct. I admit that my understanding was that the damaged propeller shaft wasn't immediately stopped resulting in that part of the ship basically tearing itself apart. Clearly my memory is wrong on that point.



Glider has a point I am the first to second. The structural weakness of the ships in question was either attributable to welding problems (welding by this time was comparably new technology in shipbuilding) or to structural issues. The case that whole sternstructures collapsed (Lützow and Prinz Eugen) point to the latter. 
I have also read a thesis which stresses that the port shaft was stopped before and restarted in an attempt to regain controll of the ship. Damage inflicted by the torpedohit to the shaft ally lead to the destruction of watertight sealings. Some kind of emergancy measure which went wrong. The King GEORGE V class fast BB´s were very well designed from a protection point of view and I can hardly see something here which would be any different in other BB´s. It is also worth mentioning that PRINCE OF WALES stern structure collapsed somewhen between sinking and arriving on the seabed, judging from recent underwater images.


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## Freebird (Feb 28, 2008)

Delcyros, what was your opinion on my question about sloped deck armour? Is it feasable?


freebird said:


> There is something I have been wondering about, it was standard naval tactics to try to bring your broadside to bear on the enemy, as most Battleships had 4 x 2, or 3 x 3 main guns, fore aft. But with the Nelson class it was almost equally effective approaching the enemy 10 or 15 deg. off the bow, as it would be to broadside. If you were improving a design like the "Nelson" class, obviously extending the belt would be better, but what about inclined deck armour? if you *always* expected to be fired on from the bows, rather than at your broadside, couldn't the ship be designed with heavy inclined deck armour, so that any incoming shells would be impacting at a high oblique angle? I'm thinking that the engine shp displacement would be higher of course, to carry the increased armour. To compensate for the heavier deck armour, if needed, even a slightly weaker {but extended lower} belt, as the ship would plan to *always* be in action with at least 1 or 2 other British BC's or BB's and would try to *never* expose the broadside.


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## timshatz (Feb 28, 2008)

Freebird, judging only from the above pic (and granted that is a limited view and not accurate from an engineering perspective), it does not seem that angled armour is that much different in terms of angle of attack from flat deck armour. In some cases, it might even work against the theoretical protection as the distances close and the angles depart from perpendicular for the incoming fire. 

My guess (and this is only a guess) would be holding the armour in place would put a lot of weight in a local area as apposed to spreading it over several frames. Further, it will probably wreak havoc on the stability of the ship to put that much weight, that high up. Flooding could become a bigger problem.


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## Freebird (Feb 28, 2008)

timshatz said:


> Freebird, judging only from the above pic (and granted that is a limited view and not accurate from an engineering perspective), it does not seem that angled armour is that much different in terms of angle of attack from flat deck armour. In some cases, it might even work against the theoretical protection as the distances close and the angles depart from perpendicular for the incoming fire.
> 
> My guess (and this is only a guess) would be holding the armour in place would put a lot of weight in a local area as apposed to spreading it over several frames. Further, it will probably wreak havoc on the stability of the ship to put that much weight, that high up. Flooding could become a bigger problem.



Tim I'm thinking only of a "Heavy Battleship" design similar to the "Nelson". In a typical Battleship, which prefers to fire at broadside the angled deck armour would be worse. However, in the "Nelson" type design all the guns fire forward, so for shots coming over the bow it would increase the deflection angle, and make it more likely to deflect shots outboard, as opposed to deflecting straight back. {and possibly impacting the barbettes} Again I prefaced this with the "Heavy design" that would always be expected to operate as part of a superior fleet, never one on one.

Just a curious thought, I would also like to hear delcyros's take on deck armour.


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## timshatz (Feb 28, 2008)

I gotcha ( I think), you're saying angled more like the Armour on a tank, say an M1 or the front of a Panther. 

If I'm right, where would you put such armour? Would there be a false deck over the armour deck on the front of the ship? Would the conning tower be triangular in shape? 

Just trying to get my head around the picture of the advantage. It seems like an idea to take the negative aspects of "capping the T" away from that manuver. All guns firing forward and sloped armour do deflect incoming rounds. 

Almost a tank on the ocean.


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## delcyros (Feb 28, 2008)

The sloped armour deck isn´t giving You any advantage. Quite the opposite is the case: The horizontal deck armour is able to deflect enemy projectiles with thinner thicknesses than the vertical belts. If You slope the armour deck from the horizontal to the vertical, You need to make it thicker because deck hits will now engage the armour at a -from the projectiles point of view- more favourable angle of impact. To offset this higher penetration ability You need to enforce the deck. From a weight consideration, this scheme does produce considerable problems as You need more weight for A) larger coverage of surfaces and B) thicker plates. The naval architect finally will go mad with all the topweights involved. Let me stress one final point: The all-or nothing armour scheme of this class of ships tries to make the hittable surfaces as small as possible. Your scheme makes the target area protected by thick armour larger (positive: more protected buoyancy; negative: hit´s are more likely to involve the deck).

I have investigated different armour schemes in the past. The best possible I have run so far is a hypothetical armour scheme combining the advantages of german and french protective schemes. It is basically a french scheme (Dunkerwue, Richelieu-but not internal as those), including the high placed armour deck (buoyancy reserve) AND the thick armoured slope behind the belt from Bismarck and Gneisenau (giving immunity for the vitals against close range belt hits and preventing upwards venting of torpedo blasts) with a lower armour deck and torpedo bulkhead acting as splinter catcher. The 120mm slope will destroy or deflect all projectiles (which will be in decapped condition by then as they penetrated either the 120mm main armour deck or the 300mm main belt in the first place to reach the slope) and all projectiles which penetrated the main belt will suffer an upwards deflection (normalizing) which enhances the 50mm splinterdeck´s ability to deflect those projectiles greatly. The backside of the coin is that such a scheme will be very costly in terms of weight (in our example You could make a single 190mm deck instead). The immune zone for the lower scheme against Iowa 16"/50 ranges from 0 yards to 30.000 yards.


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## Freebird (Feb 28, 2008)

timshatz said:


> I gotcha ( I think), you're saying angled more like the Armour on a tank, say an M1 or the front of a Panther.
> 
> If I'm right, where would you put such armour? Would there be a false deck over the armour deck on the front of the ship? Would the conning tower be triangular in shape?



The Nelsons CT was in fact triangular {diagram 1}

And in fact a *Jagd*Panther might be a better comparison, more of a dedicated role, for heavy assaults, not suitable for raiding or general purpose. So this type of ship would not be a "escort" type duty, there might be one "heavy" BB in the UK specifically waiting for the German fleet to sortie, another in Alexandria to engage the Italians, perhaps a third would be used in the far east. So your battle fleet might be 1 heavy BB, 1 fast BB, and 2 or 3 older "Warspite" or "Royal Sovereign" type dreadnoughts {+ CV's, CA's CL's DD's etc} 



timshatz said:


> Just trying to get my head around the picture of the advantage. It seems like an idea to take the negative aspects of "capping the T" away from that manuver. All guns firing forward and sloped armour do deflect incoming rounds.
> 
> Almost a tank on the ocean.



Yes, that is what I was thinking, as hits from the fromt will have a very large angle of impact. {see diagram 2} {from wikipedia}



delcyros said:


> The sloped armour deck isn´t giving You any advantage. Quite the opposite is the case: The horizontal deck armour is able to deflect enemy projectiles with thinner thicknesses than the vertical belts. If You slope the armour deck from the horizontal to the vertical, You need to make it thicker because *deck hits will now engage the armour at a -from the projectiles point of view- more favourable angle of impact.* To offset this higher penetration ability You need to enforce the deck. From a weight consideration, this scheme does produce considerable problems as You need more weight for A) larger coverage of surfaces and B) thicker plates.
> 
> I have investigated different armour schemes in the past. The best possible I have run so far is a hypothetical armour scheme combining the advantages of german and french protective schemes.



But only if the deck hits occur from the sides correct? If the hit comes from closer to the bow than the beam, the angled deck will be more likely to deflect the hit towards the side of the ship, instead of deflecting to hit the CT or the barbettes. What about extending the agled part of your diagram so that the shell that penetrated the top deck will hit the angled deck, not the splinter deck? {diagram 3}

I also envision that this design will be quite a bit more than the 35,000 tons, with so much weight of armour.


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## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

If the armor beneath the deck were sloped it could cause great damage to the ship than normal armor.

freebird you are stuck on the Nelson and Rodney design mate. The Nelson design did nothing for the Rodney in the battle against the Bismarck and I will quite now what happened to her.

Of the two Battleships King George V and the Rodney the Rodney fared much worse.

"The force of the explosion from a shell that landed in the water close by had jammed her port torpedo rube doors. But this was minor compared to the side-effects of the continuous firing of her big guns, several of which actually jumped their cradles. There were damage throughout the ship. Another U.S. passenger on board, a Chief Petty Officer Miller, described the devastation in his report: "tile decking in washrooms, water closets and heads were ruptured throughout the ship.... Longitudinal beams were broken and cracked in many parts of the ship having to be shored. The overhead decking ruptured and many bad leaks were caused by bolts and rivets coming loose. All compartments on the main deck had water flooding the decks.... Cast iron water mains were ruptured and in many instances broke, flooding compartments.... Bulkheads, furniture, lockers and fittings were blown loose causing undue damage to permanent structures when the ship rolled." Given this evidence, the damage from even one well-placed 15-inch shell would likely have been enormous."

_THE DISCOVERY OF THE BISMARCK by Robert D. Ballard_

In my opinion if you were to hit the center turret of the Nelson/Rodney and it damaged the front or back turret the whip would be in a very bad shape. The Bridge superstructure is so large that it would be a very big target for the enemy.

If you look at the wreck of the Bismarck you can see that the open bridge were destroyed and that the other parts were also hit, but now you must take in consideration that there were how many ships firing on her at one time?

I think it is the way the enemy shoot at your ship and not if the armor is sloped or not. The Germans worked at a angle while the British worked at the hull of the enemy. The Germans thus had better luck if the hit the enemy, because as we all know that the deck armor and command parts of a Battleship is not as protected as the hull so if it got hit it was a greater hit at the enemy than just the hull.


----------



## timshatz (Feb 29, 2008)

delcyros said:


> The sloped armour deck isn´t giving You any advantage. Quite the opposite is the case: The horizontal deck armour is able to deflect enemy projectiles with thinner thicknesses than the vertical belts. If You slope the armour deck from the horizontal to the vertical, You need to make it thicker because deck hits will now engage the armour at a -from the projectiles point of view- more favourable angle of impact. To offset this higher penetration ability You need to enforce the deck. From a weight consideration, this scheme does produce considerable problems as You need more weight for A) larger coverage of surfaces and B) thicker plates. The naval architect finally will go mad with all the topweights involved. Let me stress one final point: The all-or nothing armour scheme of this class of ships tries to make the hittable surfaces as small as possible. Your scheme makes the target area protected by thick armour larger (positive: more protected buoyancy; negative: hit´s are more likely to involve the deck).
> 
> I have investigated different armour schemes in the past. The best possible I have run so far is a hypothetical armour scheme combining the advantages of german and french protective schemes. It is basically a french scheme (Dunkerwue, Richelieu-but not internal as those), including the high placed armour deck (buoyancy reserve) AND the thick armoured slope behind the belt from Bismarck and Gneisenau (giving immunity for the vitals against close range belt hits and preventing upwards venting of torpedo blasts) with a lower armour deck and torpedo bulkhead acting as splinter catcher. The 120mm slope will destroy or deflect all projectiles (which will be in decapped condition by then as they penetrated either the 120mm main armour deck or the 300mm main belt in the first place to reach the slope) and all projectiles which penetrated the main belt will suffer an upwards deflection (normalizing) which enhances the 50mm splinterdeck´s ability to deflect those projectiles greatly. The backside of the coin is that such a scheme will be very costly in terms of weight (in our example You could make a single 190mm deck instead). The immune zone for the lower scheme against Iowa 16"/50 ranges from 0 yards to 30.000 yards.



Delc, I think somebody else already noted this but wouldn't that design make the ship exceedingly topheavy. So much armour, coupled with turrets and a superstructure would raise the metrocentric (I think that's it) level. 

It is my guess that such an increase in weight would force an increase in the beam, leading to an increase in armour, leading to an increase in weight....and so on in an ever increasing spiral. 

Is your plan to shield only parts of the vessel and thereby decrease the total weight?


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## Freebird (Feb 29, 2008)

timshatz said:


> Delc, I think somebody else already noted this but wouldn't that design make the ship exceedingly topheavy. So much armour, coupled with turrets and a superstructure would raise the metrocentric (I think that's it) level.
> 
> It is my guess that such an increase in weight would force an increase in the beam, leading to an increase in armour, leading to an increase in weight....and so on in an ever increasing spiral.
> 
> *Is your plan to shield only parts of the vessel and thereby decrease the total weight*?



Actually Tim I don't think so, the newer battleships had 5.5 - 7 inches deck armour (130 - 180 mm) but in delcyros's diagram the 120 mm inclined belt is quite low in the hull, so together with the higher 120 mm deck armour would have a similar effect than a 190 mm belt very high up in the hull. In my example of a ship that prefers to fire over the bow instead of broadside, side armour could be compromised slightly to ensure that the deck is heavily immune. Again, this would entail careful management of the battle fleet - no "Jutland" type free for all's {but then the UK knew they wouldn't be facing a dozen battleships, just a couple of heavily armed ones 



Henk said:


> If the armor beneath the deck were sloped it could cause great damage to the ship than normal armor.
> 
> freebird you are stuck on the Nelson and Rodney design mate. The Nelson design did nothing for the Rodney in the battle against the Bismarck and I will quite now what happened to her.
> 
> ...



Henk, every battleship is vulnerable to "one well placed shell", even the Bismarck.

The Rodney had already been damaged in a very heavy storm, and was on her was to the US before the action. And she got a full re-fit, not just a radar upgrade. The fact that in 1942 the British repeatedly sent the ship into the Med to engage the Italians {but had no combat because the enemy never dared to challenge} speaks volumes to the "ability to take on another battleship". If the ship was so useless, why didn't they send HMS Anson or hMS Duke of York instead and leave Rodney at home?

The construction and the guns were not of the highest quality, I'll grant you that, but the battleship would have given her due. What do you mean "jumped cradles" All bettleship turrets are 'loose' they are not bolted down, and firing guns continuously does have a huge effect on any ship. The Yamato reportedly couldnt have crew manning the open AA guns while firing the mains, as the effect of firing her huge guns would injure them 



> In my opinion if you were to hit the center turret of the Nelson/Rodney and it damaged the front or back turret the whip would be in a very bad shape. The Bridge superstructure is so large that it would be a very big target for the enemy.



Why would this be any different than a hit on the Iowa's turret damaging another? Do you have any evidence of a hit destroying two turrets at once? {Bismarcks second turret was knocked out for some reason, but did fire again later}



> If you look at the wreck of the Bismarck you can see that the open bridge were destroyed and that the other parts were also hit, but now you must take in consideration that there were how many ships firing on her at one time?
> 
> I think it is the way the enemy shoot at your ship and not if the armor is sloped or not. The Germans worked at a angle while the British worked at the hull of the enemy. The Germans thus had better luck if the hit the enemy, because as we all know that the deck armor and command parts of a Battleship is not as protected as the hull so if it got hit it was a greater hit at the enemy than just the hull.



The slope does play a big part of it Henk, thats why some side belt armour was sloped to increase the oblique angle of hits.


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## Glider (Feb 29, 2008)

On HMS Tiger after a 6in shoot we went back to the mess deck and everything that could be broken was broken. Lockers had come off the bulkheads, burst open, a sink had come lose and one of its pipes burst with water everywhere. Granted our mess was directly below A turret and was always going to be damaged more than most, but it did bring back some memories.

Re the guns on the Rodney they operated well (at least that was my understanding) so I don't know what impact the damage had. A gun that jumps its cradle is unusable so soething isn't right somewhere.


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## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

Here is the operational history of the Rodney during the war. Taken from HMS Rodney, British battleship, WW2



H. M. S. R O D N E Y



HMS RODNEY was ordered from Cammell Laird, Birkenhead on 1st January 1923 having been laid down on 28th December 1922. She was launched on 17th December 1925 by HRH The Princess Royal, as the 8th RN ship to carry this name, introduced in 1759. It had previously been used for an 1884 battleship, sold in 1909. This ship was fully commissioned at Devonport on 7th December 1927 for service in the Atlantic Fleet. During pre-war service she was refitted periodically but the planned full modernisation was not carried out because of the outbreak of WW2. She was the first RN battleship to be fitted with any radar and the second installation in the Fleet. Type 79Y for detection of aircraft was installed in 1938 and had been intended to go in her sister ship HMS NELSON. However this was changed because the chosen site for the radar aerial would have required the Admiral's flag to occupy an inferior position! After a successful WARSHIP WEEK National Savings Campaign in March 1942 this ship was adopted by the staff of Glynn Mills Bank in the City of London.



B a t t l e H o n o u r s

QUEBEC 1759 - SYRIA 1840 - CRIMEA 1854 - NORWAY 1940 - ATLANTIC 1940-41 - BISMARCK Action 1941 - MALTA CONVOYS 1941-42 - NORTH AFRICA 1942-43 - SICILY 1943 - SALERNO 1943 - MEDITERRANEAN 1943 - NORMANDY 1944 - ENGLISH CHANNEL 1944 - ARCTIC 1944

H e r a l d i c D a t a

Badge: On a Field White, out of a ducal coronet Gold, an eagle

Purple with beak and claws, Gold.



M o t t o

Non Genarant Aquilae Columbas: 'Eagles do not breed doves'



D e t a i 1 s o f W a r S e r v i c e



1 9 3 9



September Deployed with 2nd Battle Squadron, Home fleet at Scapa Flow for the

interception of enemy warships attempting to enter Atlantic through

NW Approaches.

Carried out unsuccessful search for German liner BREMEN returning

to Germany.

26th Provided cover in North Sea for ships of Home Fleet escorting the

damaged submarine HMS SPEARFISH during return to UK.

Came under air attacks for first time.

(Note: This was the first occasion on which radar was used to give

warning of the approach of enemy aircraft. Prototype Radar Type 79Y had been

fitted in October 1938.)

Deployed with HM Aircraft Carrier ARK ROYAL and a screen of Home

Fleet destroyers).



October

8th Carried out search for German battleship GNEISENAU and screen of

nine destroyers in the Faroes-Iceland gap.

(Note: Enemy ships had made a brief sortie off coast of Norway but had

returned to harbour when RN ships arrived.)

Provided cover for passage of iron ore convoy from Narvik.

31st Returned to Clyde after Scape Flow defences had been penetrated by

U47 which sank HM Battleship ROYAL OAK on 14th October.



November Atlantic and North Sea convoy defence based in Clyde in continuation.

23rd Sailed from Clyde with HM Battleship NELSON and HM Cruiser

DEVONSHIRE and screen of seven Fleet destroyers to carry out an

unsuccessful search in Faroes–Iceland Gap for German battleships

SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU which had attacked convoy.

(Note HM Armed Merchant Cruiser RAWALPINDI had been sunk

in action with these warships which were carrying out attacks

on Atlantic shipping.)



December

1st Part of escort for 1st Canadian Troop Convoy (TC1).

Steering problems developed and ship took passage to Liverpool for

repair.

9th Under repair in commercial shipyard..

(Note: Modification to strengthen rudder stiffening carried out.

This had already been done in sister ship HMS NELSON).

For details of naval activities in Home waters during 1939 see

ENGAGE THE ENEMY MORE CLOSELY by Corelli Barnett

and Naval Staff History).

29th Took passage from Liverpool to rejoin the Fleet on completion of repair.

31st Resumed Home Fleet duties and replaced HM Battleship NELSON as

Flagship.

(Note: HMS NELSON had been mined at Loch Ewe on 4th December

and was under repair).


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## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

1 9 4 0



January On completion of repairs resumed Atlantic duties based in Clyde.



February Atlantic and North Sea interception and convoy defence in continuation.

Serious problems were developing due to 'panting' of plates in ship's side.



March Returned to Scapa Flow after anchorage defences improved.

16th Under air attack whilst at Scapa Flow.



April Home Fleet interception and convoy defence in continuation.

7th Deployed with HM Battleship VALIANT, HM Battlecruiser REPULSE, HM

Cruiser SHEFFIELD, HM Cruiser PENELOPE and French EMIL BERTIN

screened by HM Destroyers CODRINGTON, GRIFFIN, JUPITER,

ELECTRA, ESCAPADE, BRAZEN, BEDOUIN, PUNJABI, ESKIMO

and KIMBERLEY.

8th After German invasion of Norway redeployed with Fleet units to attack

enemy ships on passage to ports in Norway.

On receipt of enemy report from HM Destroyer GLOWWORM attempted

to intercept German cruiser HIPPER but made no contact.

(Note: HMS GLOWWORM which had been detached earlier to escort

minelayers was sunk by HIPPER after a gallant fight)

9th Under air attacks and hit by bomb abaft funnel. Partial detonation caused

damage and fire with 18 casualties.

(Note: HM Destroyer GURKHA (i) was sunk in these attacks.)

10th Provided cover to HM Aircraft Carrier FURIOUS during air attacks on

Trondheim.

11th Provided cover to Fleet units deployed at Narvik

(Note: HMS WARSPITE and Fleet Destroyers were in action in Narvik

Fjord ( First Battle of Narvik.)

12th Deployed off Narvik with WARSPITE, RENOWN and FURIOUS

screened by six destroyers.

13th Provided cover off Narvik during 2nd Battle of Narvik.

15th Took passage to Scapa Flow with RENOWN screened by IVANHOE,

KIMBERLEY. ESK, FORESTER and ICARUS.

(Note: Serious threat of air attacks in Norwegian waters and need to

retain heavy units for interception of commerce raiders made

this necessary).

(Note During frequent air attacks off Norway including 2 near misses

flooding of compartments took place due to weaknesses in ship'

side plating. Repair by ship's staff was carried out but not totally

effective.)

17th Arrived at Scapa Flow



May Deployment at Scapa Flow in continuation



June

9th Joined HMS VALIANT with HMS RENOWN in North Sea to supplement cover

for return of evacuation convoy from Narvik (Operation ALPHABET).

12th Deployed with HM Battlecruiser RENOWN and Fleet units with destroyer screen

to cover air operations by HM Aircraft Carrier ARK ROYAL against German

warships known to be at Trondheim

15th Returned to Scapa Flow with Fleet units.

(Note: These air attacks were unsuccessful and eight aircraft were lost.

See Naval Staff History for details.)



July Deployed at Scapa Flow with Home Fleet.

24th Flag transferred to HMS NELSON.

Nominated for refit and took passage to Rosyth.



August Under refit by HM Dockyard Rosyth for installation of the Radar Type 79Z

in place of prototype Type79Y fitted in 1938.

(For details of development and use of radar in RN see RADAR AT SEA

by D. Howse).



September Resumed Home Fleet duties based at Rosyth for interception of any attempt by

major German warships attempting to enter English Channel or take passage

for attacks on Atlantic shipping.



October Home Fleet duties at Rosyth in continuation.



November Despatched from Rosyth with HMS NELSON to carry out interception patrol

in Faroes-Iceland Gap following the sinking of HM Armed Merchant Cruiser

JERVIS BAY in defence of Convoy HX84 against attack by German cruiser

ADMIRAL SCHEER.

(Note: German ship did not return to North Sea and was sent to attack shipping

in South Atlantic.)

17th Remained in NW Approaches to cover passage of Atlantic convoys when these

were resumed following earlier attack.



December Atlantic deployment in continuation.

8th Sustained major structural damage forward due to heavy weather.

Earlier ship's staff repair torn away and flooding of compartments due to

panting of plates made necessary extempore pumping which affected

watertight integrity of forward structure.

18th Taken in hand for repair of weather damage at Rosyth

Additional stiffening provided.


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## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

1 9 4 1



January On completion resumed Home Fleet duties.

28th Deployed with HM Battlecruiser REPULSE eight Home Fleet cruisers

and screen of 11 Fleet destroyers in search for German battleships SCHARNORST

and GNEISENAU.

(Note: Sighting by HM Cruiser NAIAD gave warning of the presence of RN units

and German ships retreated at speed and were never engaged.)

Returned to Scapa Flow.



February

6th Provided cover for ships of 1st Minelaying Squadron during minelay in

Northern Barrage (Operation SN7A).

(For details of all minelaying operations see Naval Staff History (MINING)).

15th Joined military convoy WS6A with HM Destroyers ECLIPSE and ELECTRA

as Ocean Escort with HM Armed Merchant Cruiser CATHAY, HM Cruisers

BIRMINGHAM and PHOEBE during Atlantic passage to Freetown.

17th Detached from WS6A with destroyers when relieved in Ocean Escort by

HMS RENOWN and HMS ARK ROYAL



March Home Fleet deployment in NW Approaches for convoy defence and

interception.

16th Detached from provision of cover for Convoy HX114 to intercept

GNEISENAU

After sighting enemy ship lost contact in bad weather.

Returned to position of sighting and rescued survivors of mercantile

mv CHILEAN REEFER which had been sunk by GNEISENAU on 14th.

(Note: SCHARNHORST and GNEISENAU had been carrying out attacks

on Atlantic shipping sinking 13 ships. They returned to Brest

without interception on 22nd.)



April Home Fleet convoy defence and interception duties in continuation. 

Nominated for refit in USA.



May Withdrawn from operational service and prepared for refit in USA to remedy

hull structural problems and repair an accumulation of defects.


22nd Took passage from Clyde as escort for mv BRITANNIC with HM Destroyers

ESKIMO, SOMALI, MASHONA and TARTAR.

24th Detached with destroyers to join search for German battleship BISMARCK

by Home Fleet in NW Approaches.

25th Deployed between French coast and last known position of BISMARCK.

(Note: High speed operations caused machinery problems which were dealt

with by ship's staff and ship remained on station).

27th Took part in Home Fleet attacks on BISMARCK and obtained several hits

before BISMARCK was sunk by torpedoes from HM Cruiser DORSETSHIRE.

(For full details of search for and sinking of BISMARCK see BATTLESHIP

BISMARCK by Mullenheim Rechberg, PURSUIT by L Kennedy and Naval

Staff History).

(Note: One source records that the ship was the first to obtain hits on BISMARCK.)

Under air attacks later.



June Passage to Boston, USA after Home Fleet BISMARCK operations.

13th Taken in hand for refit at Boston Navy Yard


July Under repair and refit.

Prepared for installation of new fire control radar for main armament and of

New surface warning radar as well as replacement of Type 79Z by Type 281.



August

12th Refit work completed and commenced Harbour and Sea trials.

On completion took passage to Bermuda for work-up in West Indies.

During work-up joined US Navy Task Group to take part in search for commerce

raiders.

Sailed for UK for completion of radar installation and trials.

(Note: Radar fit included Type 284 main armament fire control,

Type 271 surface warning and Type 281 air warning.).

Resumed Home Fleet duties at Scapa Flow.

Detached for escort of Malta supply convoy took passage to Gibraltar.

(Operation HALBERD).



September Nominated for support of Malta relief convoy during passage from Clyde

to Sicilian Narrows.

(For details of all Malta convoy operations see ENGAGE THE ENEMY MORE

CLOSELY by Corelli Bamett, THE BATTLE TOR THE MEDITERRANEAN by D

MacIntyre, MALTA CONVOYS by R Woodman and Naval Staff History).

17th Deployed with HM Battleship PRINCE OF WALES, HM Cruisers SHEFFIELD,

KENYA, EDINBURGH, EURYALUS and screen of nine destroyers for escort of

military convoy WS11X during Atlantic passage (Operation HALBERD)

24th Entered Gibraltar to take part in deception to conceal true destination by leaving

harbour as if departing for UK. (See MALTA CONVOYS by R Woodman.)

Rejoined WS11X, then re-designated Convoy GM2 with HMS RODNEY for

escort to Sicilian Narrows.

(Note: Other ships in escort which joined convoy from Gibraltar were HM

Aircraft Carrier ARK ROYAL, and HM Cruiser HERMIONE with

11 destroyers as screen.)

26th Under perceived threat of attack by Italian force including two battleships.

27th Took up station with HMS NELSON, HMS PRINCE OF WALES screened by

six destroyers in readiness to engage enemy ships.

Italian warships reversed course when it became evident that convoy was under

escort by three battleships with air cover.

Under air attacks during which HMS NELSON was hit by a torpedo but remained

with escort although with restricted speed capability.

On arrival at Narrows remained with HMS NELSON, HMS PRINCE OF WALES.

GM2 ships detached with destroyer and cruiser escort and took passage to Malta.

29th HMS NELSON detached and took passage to Gibraltar.

30th Close escort ships rejoined from Malta after safe arrival of MG10 and returned to

Gibraltar.

(Note: Operation HALBERD also provided cover for passage of three empty

mercantiles from Malta to Gibraltar as Convoy MG2.)



October

1st Retained at Gibraltar to replace HMS NELSON in as Flagship of Force H.

16th Covered Malta aircraft delivery by HMS ARK ROYAL with HM Cruiser HERMIONE

and HM Destroyers COSSACK, FORESTER, FORESIGHT, FURY, LEGION, SIKH

and ZULU as screen (Operation CALLBOY)

19th Covered passage to Malta of HM Cruisers AURORA and PENELOPE.

(Note: These two cruisers were to form Force K for attacks on enemy convoys).



November After relief by HM Battleship MALAYA took passage to rejoin Home Fleet.

On arrival at Scapa Flow resumed convoy defence and interception duties in

North Sea and NW Approaches.



December Deployed in NW Approaches for Atlantic convoy defence.



1 9 4 2



January Convoy defence duties based on Clyde.

Nominated for refit at Liverpool



February Taken in hand for refit in commercial shipyard.



March Under Refit.

to (Note: Radars Type 282, Type 283 and Type 285 fitted for fire control of HA

April armament. See above reference).

Close range 20mm Oerlikon weapons fitted to improve defence against air attacks.


----------



## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

May

5th Dockyard work completed and commenced post refit trials.

Rejoined Home Fleet on completion of post refit trials and resumed interception

patrol and Atlantic convoy defence duties.

(Note: Planned deployment in East Indies was cancelled.)



June Deployed in Atlantic.

19th Joined military convoy WS19P with HMS NELSON, HM Destroyers

PATHFINDER, PENN, QUENTIN and DERWENT on departure from

Freetown as Ocean Escort during passage to Capetown.

26th Detached from WS19P on relief by HM Cruiser SHROPSHIRE.



July Atlantic convoy defence in continuation.



August Nominated for detached service for support of Malta relief convoy WS21X.

Took passage to Gibraltar (Operation PEDESTAL).

10th Joined Force Z to cover passage of convoy to Malta with HMS NELSON, HM

Aircraft Carriers EAGLE, INDOMITABLE and VICTORIOUS, HM Cruisers PHOEBE

SIRIUS and CHARYBDIS screened by HM Destroyers ITHURIEL, ANTELOPE,

VANSITTART, WISHART, LIGHTNING and LOOKOUT.

(For details of PEDESTAL see above references and PEDESTAL by P Smith and

above references.)

12th Detached from WS21X at Sicilian Narrows and returned to Gibraltar with ships

of Force H.

16th Passage to Scapa Flow with Home Fleet units to resume duties at

Scapa Flow.



September Deployed at Scapa Flow with Home Fleet.

Routine docking and maintenance at Rosyth.



October Nominated for detached service in Mediterranean for support of planned allied

landings in North Africa (Operation TORCH- For details see INVASION CONVOYS

by J de Winser, ENGAGE THE ENEMY MOPRE CLOSELY and the Naval Staff

History.)

Passage to Gibraltar for briefing and preparation for support duties.

 (Note: Part of escort for military convoy.)



November Joined HM Battleships DUKE OF YORK, NELSON and HMS RENOWN at

Gibraltar.

6th Sailed from Gibraltar with ships of Force H to provide cover during landings at Oran.

7th Detached from Force H and took passage to carry out patrol north of Oran to

intercept any attempt by Vichy French surface warships to interfere with the landings.

8th Deployed off Oran beach head and provided naval gunfire support during landings.

10th On release from support duties resumed Force H service.



December Gibraltar deployment in continuation.



1 9 4 3



January Deployed at Gibraltar with Force H and covered passage of build-up

to convoys.

February



March Gibraltar deployment in support of military operation in North Africa.

23rd Under attack off Mers-el-Kebir by human torpedoes which were repelled.



April Mediterranean deployment in continuation

Nominated for return to UK for routine docking



May

7th Sailed from Gibraltar from Plymouth

13th Taken in hand for routine docking and maintenance by HM Dockyard, Devonport.

Resumed Home Fleet service at Scapa Flow on completion.



June Nominated for detached service in support of planned allied landings in Sicily

(Operation HUSKY – See above references.)

17th Transferred with HMS NELSON, HMS VALIANT, HM Aircraft Carrier

INDOMITABLE and Home Fleet Destroyers.

Passage to Oran to join Force H.



July Deployed in western Mediterranean and prepared for support of landings.

9th Provided cover for passage of military convoys in western Mediterranean

prior to assault phase of HUSKY.

10th Deployed with HMS NELSON, HMS WARSPITE, HMS VALIANT, HMS

FORMIDABLE, HMS INDOMITABLE, HM Cruisers AURORA, PENELOPE.

CLEOPATRA, EURYALUS and destroyer screen in Ionian Sea to prevent

interference to HUSKY landings by Italian Fleet major warships.

(For details see above references.)

12th Released from HUSKY and took passage to Malta.



August Retained in Malta for support of planned military operations in Italy.

31st Bombarded Calabrian coast between Reggio Calabria and Pessaro with HMS

NELSON, HM Cruiser ORION and Fleet destroyers prior to British landings

across Messina Straits. (Operation BAYTOWN - See above references).



September Remained in Malta with HMS NELSON, HMS VALIANT and HMS WARSPITE

for continued military support duties.

9th Provided cover and naval gunfire support with same ships WARSPITE and HM

 Aircraft Carrier FORMIDABLE for landings at Salerno (Operation AVALANCHE).

(For details see the Naval Staff History and above references).

Under air attacks without damage.



October Released from Mediterranean support duties and took passage to Scapa

Flow with HM Battleship NELSON to resume Home Fleet service.

Escorted from Gibraltar by HM Destroyer OFFA.



November Withdrawn from operational service because of machinery problems and

structural defects with consequential heavy work load and poor availability.



December Passage from Gibraltar to Clyde for refit.


----------



## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

1 9 4 4



January Static role at Scapa Flow in continuation.



February Routine docking and maintenance at Rosyth.

to

March



April Resumed duties at Scapa Flow.



May Nominated for support of allied landings in Normandy (Operation NEPTUNE)

To be Reserve Bombarding Ship for Eastern Task Force with HM Cruiser

SIRIUS.

(For details of naval activities before and after landings see OPERATION

NEPTUNE by K Edwards and LANDINGS IN NORMANDY, JUNE 1944 (HMSO).)

Carried out bombardment exercises in NW Approaches.



June Passage to Clyde.

3rd Sailed from Clyde for Solent.

4th Operation postponed for 24 hours.

5th Remained at Portsmouth in Reserve.

6th Passage to beachhead for bombardment duties.

Carried out bombardment of shore batteries at Le Havre.

Returned to Portsmouth to replenish ammunition.

7th Resumed duty off beachhead.

Bombarded targets in Caen area.

8th Continued bombardment of Caen area.

9th Engaged batteries at Benerville and Houlgate.

10th Passage to Portsmouth to re-ammunition.

18th Replaced HMS NELSON in Eastern Task Force area.

(Note: HMS NELSON was mined whilst returning to Portsmouth on 18th June).

19th Bombardment operations suspended during gales.

26th Bombarded positions in Caen area in support of military advance.

30th Bombarded concentration of enemy armoured vehicles south of Arromanches.



July Remained in Normandy area for gunfire support after NEPTUNE completed.

7th Provided naval gunfire support during British attacks near Caen with HM

Monitor ROBERTS, HM Cruiser BELFAST and HM Cruiser EMERALD.

8th Carried out bombardment of the Caen area in support of military operation.

Under air attack and attempt by human torpedoes both of which failed.

18th Provided naval gunfire support to 2nd British Army during assault SE of Caen.

Remained in area for support until 30th.



August Passage to Devonport on release from military support.

12th Bombarded targets on Alderney and returned to Devonport.

Based at Portland for naval gunfire support requirements.



September

14th Passage from Portland to rejoin Home Fleet.

Nominated for covering duty of Russian Convoy.

15th Passage to Kola Inlet as cover for passage of Convoy JW60.

(CinC Home Fleet embarked).

20th Arrived at Kola Inlet.

28th Sailed with return Convoy RA60.

(Note: Whilst in North Russia ship was visited by Russian CinC, Admiral Golovko)



October

3rd Detached from RA60 and returned to Scapa Flow.

5th Resumed static role at Scapa Flow.

30th Deployed as Flagship, Home Fleet



November Deployed at Scapa Flow as Flagship in Static role.

to

December

1 9 4 5



January Remained at Scapa Flow as Flagship in static role until relieved by HM Battlecruiser

to RENOWN.

May



June Deployed at Rosyth

to

August



P o s t W a r N o t e s



HMS RODNEY was honoured by a Royal visit on 29th September 1945, before she paid off at Portsmouth on 30th November that year. The ship was laid-up in Reserve at Rosyth and placed on the Disposal List in March 1948. Sold to BISCO for demolition by TW Ward she arrived in tow at Inverkeithing to be broken-up on 26th March 1948.

As you can see the Rodney was repaired after the storm she was in. When a gun jumps it's cradle it jumps the mount it is mounted in the Turret. The problem with the Rodney is that all of her main armament was in the front of the ship and was thus not a great idea. Of all the other British Battleship designs she is for me one of the strangest designs and did not make her a great Battleship.

Yes it is true that when the main guns of the Yamato fired the crew had to be in a certain position not to be thrown up in the air


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## Freebird (Feb 29, 2008)

Henk said:


> As you can see the Rodney was repaired after the storm she was in. When a gun jumps it's cradle it jumps the mount it is mounted in the Turret. *The problem with the Rodney is that all of her main armament was in the front of the ship and was thus not a great idea. Of all the other British Battleship designs she is for me one of the strangest designs* and did not make her a great Battleship.
> 
> Yes it is true that when the main guns of the Yamato fired the crew had to be in a certain position not to be thrown up in the air



She was REPAIRED after the serious storm damage, but was in fact in need of a RE-FIT in the USA, was on her way there before being called back to hunt down Bismarck. 

The fact that it was an unorthodox design does not make it a *bad* design, as pointed out previously, there are some significant advantages to offering only a bow profile to the enemy, as almost all impacting shells hit at less than 45 deg, wheras a hull hit from broadside is close to 90 deg, the worst possible angle


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## Henk (Feb 29, 2008)

I understand what you are saying freebird. The other problem I have with the German design is the fact that they did not have enough main armament. The Bismarck only had 8 15 inch guns, but think of if she had 3 15 inch guns in each turret? The other thing that is a waste of space is the aircraft catapult and hangers. Without it they could have used the space for something better.


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## Freebird (Feb 29, 2008)

Henk said:


> I understand what you are saying freebird. The other problem I have with the German design is the fact that they did not have enough main armament. The Bismarck only had 8 15 inch guns, but think of if she had 3 15 inch guns in each turret? The other thing that is a waste of space is the aircraft catapult and hangers. Without it they could have used the space for something better.



Yep I agree with you there, since the Germans were not going to stick to the 35,000 ton limit, why not do 45,000 or 50,000 tons, and something that the British can't match. Why not make 16" guns? If the Italians can, no reason why Germany couldn't


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## renrich (Mar 1, 2008)

There is no way one could design a battleship with four triple turrets with 15 or 16 inch guns that had decent armor and decent speed on 50000 tons of displacement. With that many guns one would have to sacrifise almost all armor or engine power or both to get it into 50000 tons. The Montana class (US) were supposed to have four triple 16 inch turrets and only 28 knots and they were projected to be 60500 tons. The Bismarck (full load) was close to 50000 tons.


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## delcyros (Mar 1, 2008)

For all You armchair warship designers I suggest to have a look into Springsharp. With this tool, You can approximate basic layout designs of warships. It´s very useful.

http://www.springsharp.com/


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## timshatz (Mar 3, 2008)

Pretty cool Delc, thanks for posting.


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## Freebird (Mar 3, 2008)

delcyros said:


> For all You armchair warship designers I suggest to have a look into Springsharp. With this tool, You can approximate basic layout designs of warships. It´s very useful.
> 
> SpringSharp



thanks for the link! 




renrich said:


> There is no way one could design a battleship with four triple turrets with 15 or 16 inch guns that had decent armor and decent speed on 50000 tons of displacement. With that many guns one would have to sacrifise almost all armor or engine power or both to get it into 50000 tons. The Montana class (US) were supposed to have four triple 16 inch turrets and only 28 knots and they were projected to be 60500 tons. The Bismarck (full load) was close to 50000 tons.



True enough, you might be able to get it at 50,000-55,000 with somewhat less armour or guns. (The British would be expecting to face the German 15" guns, while the Montana was designed to withstand the heavy 16" shells) Or if it does end up with the Montana's disp, then so be it. {Lucky asked a question what would *your* navy look like, he didn't qualify it with "assuming budget constraints imposed by dingbat polititians with their heads in the sand", on the eve of a world war!!!}


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## Henk (Mar 3, 2008)

I would like to get a program that can take my design of the ship, not the specs and correct the errors I made and give me a rough idea of how it should be corrected. My designs are huge, and if they were ever build would be giants, due to so many turrets I have on it, but they did do it with the Dreadnought designs. I did try that program, but it did not have what I wanted.

I use some of the design ideas of some of the battleships, because they work and fits greatly with my ships.


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## Freebird (May 12, 2008)

parsifal said:


> IMO Bismarck is one of the most overrated designs as well, but I dont want to hijack the debate at this point



Well you may find some disagreement on that...

I think the poll is about 48% for Bismarck last time I looked.


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## Soren (May 19, 2008)

freebird said:


> Well you may find some disagreement on that...
> 
> I think the poll is about 48% for Bismarck last time I looked.



And for good reason


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## parsifal (May 19, 2008)

freebird said:


> *Well you may find some disagreement on that...
> 
> I think the poll is about 48% for Bismarck last time I looked.[/*QUOTE]
> 
> I wouldnt disagree that the Bismarck was the most powerful BB in a straight duel in 1941. Within a short space of time, however her design was outclassed, to which her design faults only exacerbated the issue


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## delcyros (May 19, 2008)

> Within a short space of time, however her design was outclassed, to which her design faults only exacerbated the issue



That´s a hard statement, I cannot agree with, when juding the Bismarck on her most plausible thread context. Would You please explain why? I know that this can be read mutiple times by naval authorities but here Dr. George Elders comment should warn us:
"WE HAVE TO DO DEEPER RESEARCH."

Best regards,
delc


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## parsifal (May 19, 2008)

From what Ive read, she had an AA suite that was dubious, her armour distribution was relatively poor, and in comparison to the KGVs, relatively thin. The gunnery and fire control and radar detection systems were beginning to look dated by 1942.

The Germans based the design of the bismarcks largely on the Baden and one other WWI design (name escapes me). However, they had been out of the battleship design game for too long, ideas on armour distribution IMO were dated. The armour scheme appears to try and cover every part of the ship, rather than covering the vitals. Certain key elements of the ships systems were not even covered by the main belt at all (although there were back up systems further down in the ship. Bismarcks performance in her last battle was nothing special IMO. Her guns were silenced in a relatively short space of time.

I have read from some accounts that her standard of underwater protection was not that great either, but have not researched that issue all that much. The British system was far simpler, a lot less flashy, but in the end, better, ton for ton

I know that Bismarck is somewhat of a sacred cow for many, but I am not one of theose people


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## Freebird (May 19, 2008)

parsifal said:


> I wouldnt disagree that the Bismarck was the most powerful BB in a straight duel in 1941. Within a short space of time, however her design was outclassed, to which her design faults only exacerbated the issue



How would you compare the Bismarck, KGV and Nelson? In that exact order?

The reason I put "straight duel", {ie. both sides are intent on closing, neither side is trying to disengage} is that the greatest handicap of the Nelson was the speed, if Bismarck declined to stand and fight the "Nelson"s couldn't force the issue.


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## delcyros (May 19, 2008)

parsifal said:


> From what Ive read, she had an AA suite that was dubious, her armour distribution was relatively poor, and in comparison to the KGVs, relatively thin. The gunnery and fire control and radar detection systems were beginning to look dated by 1942.



Bismarck´s AA suite was indeed dubious, in the way that it had an inhomogenious setup of two mounts with different abilities regarding traversing speed for the 4.1"/65. However, her AA-FC gear was excellent, all guns were what the US jargon called fully remote power controlled and unlike US and british practice in fully triaxially stabilized mounts with FC beeing fully tachimetric, triaxially stabilized, too. That´s by no means weak. For her time, Bismarck had the best AA suite in the world! The FC gear was able to deal with change rates in range, elevation and direction, unlike the british high angle system, which could only deal with planes flying strictly in level. 
Regarding the armour distribution I too have a different opinion, the distribution was very good and the waterline protection was the best of all battleships ever build (this is a quote from Nathan Okun).
It has weaknesses but the side protection is not one of them.



> The Germans based the design of the bismarcks largely on the Baden and one other WWI design (name escapes me). However, they had been out of the battleship design game for too long, ideas on armour distribution IMO were dated. The armour scheme appears to try and cover every part of the ship, rather than covering the vitals. Certain key elements of the ships systems were not even covered by the main belt at all (although there were back up systems further down in the ship.


There is indeed one area 100% overtaken from the Baden, that´s Bismarck´s kitchen. Other than this, both designs do only have superficial similarity: Both ships have four twin turrets with 38cm guns - from an entirely different gun and hoist structure.
Both designs have a three shafted design - with a completely different machinery and hullform, of course.
Both designs have a slope - but Bismarcks slope (unlike Baden´s) is made from full armour grade material and enforced enough to deflect any belt penetrating projectile.
The armour design is no way dated -it was different but new! No ww1 BB had such an armour layout with an armoured slope designed to deflect belt piercing hits. If You study the design history, You will soon see that the all-or-nothing armour scheme was not unknown to Germany. The pocket battleships were designed with this scheme. But once projectiles became more and more effective (introduction of hard capped - low filled APC in the 30´s) it became necessary to combine side and deck protection system as Hoyer wrote 1942. This was actually established with shell by shell caisson tests on the old PD Hessen (1:1 sections) in 1932 to -34. During these and other trials, they did became familar with decapping effects and yawing effects of projectiles. In response to these knowledge, german and italian APC were much more difficult to decap than US, british or japanese APC´s with grave consequences for all ships with internal belt arrangements (Nelson, Dunkerque, Richelieu, South Dakota, Iowa).
Moving away from a-o-n was nothing related only to german design practice. Study the last UK battleship (HMS VANGUARD) and You will find a comparable situation, moving away from a-o-n was considered a necessarity. It shouldn´t be taken as dated nor should it be judged without contexts of other design parameters (stability, for example).
The statement that certain key elements are not covered by armour has never been substantiated. I would really like to know which key elements are mentioned here, I have studied the plans in detail and all important energy and comm lines are under the MAD with only the heavily armoured comm tubes running above them. You can trace this statement down to Nathan Okuns famous analysis of the Bismarck armour scheme but here again nothing is said about those "key" elements. An urban myth if You ask me.
If You want to name a weakness than deck protection is the way to go. Compared to other latest generation BB´s, Bismarck does have a higher vulnarability to plunging fire from 24.000 yards onwards with the heaviest projectiles. But not many hit´s occurred at these long ranges, which would in turn show that the decision to protect Bismarck at closer ranges was justified with hindsight of ww2 evidences. Another striking weakness is the low degree of protection for the exposed turrets / barbettes, a weakness shared by KGV.



> I have read from some accounts that her standard of underwater protection was not that great either, but have not researched that issue all that much. The British system was far simpler, a lot less flashy, but in the end, better, ton for ton


I have read them, too but cannot agree in them. The british system does not prevent venting of the blast into the upper hull (bypassing the whole TDS), which was a major contributor for the rapid sinking of HMS Prince of Wales. While Bismarck´s TDS may have been a bit away from beeing perfect, it remained very good and in combination with the excessive metacentric height prooved to make the ship extremely resistant to underwater damage as prooved by operation Rheinübung and the history of Tirpitz and the twins, which had a comparable but inferior system. 
Bottomline is that the KGV class did not reacted superior against underwaterdamage in direct comparison.

I myselfe might appear to be fond of Bismarck, but as You can read in the poll, I have voted for Littorio instead.

best regards,
delc


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## Glider (May 19, 2008)

There can be little doubt that the Bismarks Fire Control was the best of its time but the weapons themselves were below average. Her 37mm were only semi automatic with each shell manually loaded resulting in a very slow rate of fire. The 4.1in were very sophisticated but training rates were average and they tended to be unreliable.


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## parsifal (May 19, 2008)

delcyros said:


> *Bismarck´s AA suite was indeed dubious, in the way that it had an inhomogenious setup of two mounts with different abilities regarding traversing speed for the 4.1"/65. However, her AA-FC gear was excellent, all guns were what the US jargon called fully remote power controlled and unlike US and british practice in fully triaxially stabilized mounts with FC beeing fully tachimetric, triaxially stabilized, too. That´s by no means weak. For her time, Bismarck had the best AA suite in the world! The FC gear was able to deal with change rates in range, elevation and direction, unlike the british high angle system, which could only deal with planes flying strictly in level. *
> 
> I dont dispute that the theoretical arrangements for AA were impressive. But the proof of the pudding is in the results. I think the best single days shooting goes to the South Dakota, at Santa Cruz, where she was credited with bringing down something like 12 A/C. Then we have the British efforts in the Med, which are not to be scoffed at. Compare that with Bismarcks and Tirpitz's efforts against various strikes made against them. For a number of reasons, the Germans efforts can only be rated as poor. Sometimes, opting for the most sophisticated does not result in the best results. The triaxial mountings for the 4.1 I have read caused all manner of problems, as did the advanced predictors that the Germans were using, particulalry against slow moving targets like the Swordfish
> 
> ...


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## parsifal (May 19, 2008)

delcyros said:


> *Bismarck´s AA suite was indeed dubious, in the way that it had an inhomogenious setup of two mounts with different abilities regarding traversing speed for the 4.1"/65. However, her AA-FC gear was excellent, all guns were what the US jargon called fully remote power controlled and unlike US and british practice in fully triaxially stabilized mounts with FC beeing fully tachimetric, triaxially stabilized, too. That´s by no means weak. For her time, Bismarck had the best AA suite in the world! The FC gear was able to deal with change rates in range, elevation and direction, unlike the british high angle system, which could only deal with planes flying strictly in level. *
> 
> I dont dispute that the theoretical arrangements for AA were impressive. But the proof of the pudding is in the results. I think the best single days shooting goes to the South Dakota, at Santa Cruz, where she was credited with bringing down something like 12 A/C. Then we have the British efforts in the Med, which are not to be scoffed at. Compare that with Bismarcks and Tirpitz's efforts against various strikes made against them. For a number of reasons, the Germans efforts can only be rated as poor. Sometimes, opting for the most sophisticated does not result in the best results. The triaxial mountings for the 4.1 I have read caused all manner of problems, as did the advanced predictors that the Germans were using, particulalry against slow moving targets like the Swordfish
> 
> ...


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## delcyros (May 20, 2008)

I do always enjoi a discussion with such a well informed person, Parsifal.



> But the proof of the pudding is in the results. I think the best single days shooting goes to the South Dakota, at Santa Cruz, where she was credited with bringing down something like 12 A/C. Then we have the British efforts in the Med, which are not to be scoffed at. Compare that with Bismarcks and Tirpitz's efforts against various strikes made against them. For a number of reasons, the Germans efforts can only be rated as poor.



I have no idea how well SD´s claims do match japanese losses but I remember strong doubts on this number from both sides. However, the condition is important, my friend! South Dakota was stationed behind a carrier at a calm day and all incoming A/C had an easily predictable course towards the carrier. In this position, unmolested by enemy airstrikes, and with the help of the full AA ability of the whole task force, it is not that surprising that such excellent results come to day. This is however, fundamentally different from Bismarck´s or Tirpitz condition. I have posted AA ammo expendeture figures for Tirpitz in 1942 when under attack by Victorious enroute and those of the US statistical report for august 1945 and the phillipines campaign 1944. From a purely statistical comparison, the numbers of AA rounds expended for achieveing a kill are identic for Tirpitz on the one side and the average expendeture figure for US task forces (including themuch improved VT-fuzed rounds!). This is hardly an evidence for very poor performance.
Bismarck´s performance was substantially lower than Tirpitz, the main reason beeing that the automatic fuze setting of the 4.1"AA rounds had not a low enough min. setting. This was recitified in mid 1941 for all KM ships. The predictor had nothing to do with the problem, the AA curtain was always developing at a wrong position relative to the slower than estimated swordfishs. Triaxially stabilized mountings were causing mechanical problems owing to fatigue and hydraulic leakages. The cases are well documented by the various AVKS reports on the ships and I have the impression that this was more a problem of maintenenace than service.



> The problem as I see it is that the Bismarck was trying for too much of the hull to be protected. sounds strange I know, but the Germans were distributing their armour over somehting like 70% of the hull structure, whereas the KGVs (just for comparison...I am no great fan of the KGV) area of the just 59%. If the surface area of the two ships is roughly equal (which I have NOT checked), then the 12000 tons of armour in the KGV, spread over just 59% of the hull, is going to be thicker, and more effective, than the 17000 tons spread over the 70% of the Bismarcks Hull


The basic idea behind this explenation is sound and there is every evidence that KGV´s main belt is thicker than Bismarck´s and beyond this, while inferior to italian armour was also made from slightly better armour grade quality than german and significantly better quality than US armour belts. However, the belt was not thick enough to stop major calibre impacts by the then in use german and italian 15" APC projectiles from close to medium distances (0 to 20.000 yards and less if You give any allowance for target angles). And once pierced, there was nothing substantial between vitals and the projectile...



> Yes, and according to Campbell, the safety standards in the bismarcks shell handling areas were wanting when compared to British standards, the british having learned the hard way in WWI


The difference is relative to functioning principles as well. While the british gun was a breech loader, all german naval guns except for the 28cmL35/L40 of the vintage Brandenburg class Pre-Dreadnoughts were working according to the quick fire principle. However, the vast use of safety interlocks were giving the British all sorts of problems, particularely in the quad turrets of the KGV-class, which can be studied in detail as those are well reported. furtherly, these safety measures were more important for the RN as they were still relying on MD cordite derivates in silk bags while the german navy preferred tubular grain solventless powder in brass cases. The history of fatal magazine explosions is a very one sided one, beeing much in disfavour of the Royal Navy...



> The three shaft design was a direct contributing factor in the loss of the Bismarck. If she had adopted a four shaft system, such as was common in other designs, she may have been able to achieve some level of steerage by the engines. The three prop configuration along with the twin rudders located so close together were major factors contributing to her loss


I disagree in this. The steering gear was unaccessable by environmental conditions of the rising sea, night skirmishes with DD´s and the close shadowing (preventing stopping). I have not found any instance where a rudder blocked 20 deg. port was successfully countersteered by a fourshafted BB. There are instances for steering gear blocks (Valiant 1941, Warspite at Jutland, Krishima at Guadacanal) but in no case could that be countered with applying different levels of power to the shafts. Only when the steering gear became under controll AND the rudder neutral (!) this was a viable option.



> I cannot see how having thinner armour, unable to prevent shell penetrations of likley adversaries, is an advance over having restricted armour distribution, which at least has a chance of preventing penetrations over a wider range. The concentrated armour schemes might not protect all of the ship, but they were better at protecting the vitals


It might, but not the way it was done in any BB. Basically, define "vitals". You will need to differ between embedded and exposed vitals. As long as we are talking about embedded vitals (magazines, machinery, ship controll) this statement is wrong. Once the belt got pierced, the projectile is still far away from damaging the vitals. It still needs to defeat the enforced slope (which it cannot do except for lucky instances, such as hits on the plate joint) and afterwards needs to traverse a liquid filled compartement and finally needs to defeat the strengthend torpedo bulkhead to reach the vitals. Not even Yamato´s 18.1" gun -which by far was the best belt penetrator of all naval guns- is able to do that on what was described as tyical fighting distances.
Usually the projectile will deflect upwards by the slope and (...in case it remains in a condition fit to...) burst in the sacrificial upper hull, with no serious damage and more importantly no associated flooding. Contemporary US and french design practice would see the projectile either penetrating the inclined belt or deflecting downwards INTO THE SHIPS TDS, causing flooding. The armour layout of Bismarck provides immunity for a wider range of distances, starting at point blanc and extending to the range where the projectile can defeat the deck armour. That is from say 6.000 yards to 26.000 yards against KGV´s guns, exactly the range at which most battles were fought in ww2 ( covering a much larger area, btw). KGV´s armour layout extends her IZ from about 20.000 yards to 34.000 yards against Bismarck´s guns (embedded vitals, only), covering much less of the ship. In the end this appears to be much protection on ultra long ranges not used in ww2... Would You call this an advantage?
I do not think that Bismarck´s designers were looking forward, but they were using investigations of Jutland, not aviable to UK/US forces before the advent of the US technical mission to europe in 1945. Much of the conclusions drawn by ww2 experience for Vanguard were already known by the K-Amt, such as extending the vitals over larger area or giving the ship adeaquately protected ship ends. It can be argued on the other hand that plunging fire was not adeaquately adressed in Bismarck´s design and I agree that this was the case. 

best regards,
delc


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## parsifal (May 20, 2008)

We will have to agree to disagree on this issue I am afraid. there are many points of common ground, but my basic opinion on the poor design of Bismarck remains unchanged. I respect your differing opinion, but dont agree with it at all Im afraid. And my credentials are reasonably good to be able to say that. It is up to our audience to decide for themselves I guess


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## Soren (May 20, 2008)

Perhaps one shoudl ask the the question; Which one would you feel the safest in ?


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## parsifal (May 20, 2008)

The one that doesnt sink I think


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## Glider (May 20, 2008)

An allied one, as your most unlikely to be outnumbered.


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## Henk (May 20, 2008)

I would love to be in a Axis Battleship, but there were not many of them.


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## Soren (May 20, 2008)

parsifal said:


> The one that doesnt sink I think



Well wouldn't you say that the one with the most exposed vitals is the one most suceptible to that ? 

That's what Delcyros was trying to get across if you ask me.


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## delcyros (May 20, 2008)

parsifal said:


> We will have to agree to disagree on this issue I am afraid. there are many points of common ground, but my basic opinion on the poor design of Bismarck remains unchanged. I respect your differing opinion, but dont agree with it at all Im afraid. And my credentials are reasonably good to be able to say that. It is up to our audience to decide for themselves I guess



We will leave this then settled for now, my friend. I do have a different perspectives on the issue but I don´t pretend in it. Different opinions are good!

best regards,


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## Udet (May 21, 2008)

parsifal said:


> The one that doesnt sink I think



Then you wouldn´t want to be on any ship at all.


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## Juha (May 22, 2008)

I’m not armour specialist but one big plus to heavy deck armour was that it gave protection also against bombs which began more and more important as war progressed. German 50mm weather deck armour was a good point in that but as Scharnhorst case at La Pallace shows her armour deck was too thin, Bismarck’s armour deck was a bit thicker but probably not enough.

Quote: I have no idea how well SD´s claims do match japanese losses but I remember strong doubts on this number from both sides. However, the condition is important, my friend! South Dakota was stationed behind a carrier at a calm day and all incoming A/C had an easily predictable course towards the carrier. In this position, unmolested by enemy airstrikes, and with the help of the full AA ability of the whole task force, it is not that surprising that such excellent results come to day

SD was credited with 26 kills so something like 8 – 12 might be possible. And SD wasn’t unmolested by air attacks, it was even hit by one 250kg bomb.


Quote: I have posted AA ammo expendeture figures for Tirpitz in 1942 when under attack by Victorious enroute and those of the US statistical report for august 1945 and the phillipines campaign 1944. From a purely statistical comparison, the numbers of AA rounds expended for achieveing a kill are identic for Tirpitz on the one side and the average expendeture figure for US task forces (including themuch improved VT-fuzed rounds!). This is hardly an evidence for very poor performance.

Now one main problem with KM AA was that their 37mm AA twin gun was semi-automatic, so it had low ROF when compared for ex 40mm Bofors. I doubt that the fact that KM 37mm had triaxially stabilized mountings fully compensate the low ROF. The main function of AA wasn’t to achieve lowest expenditure of ammo per kill, in that maybe semi-automatic weapon was better but to protect target and secondary to achieve max number of kills.

I don’t recall air attacks on lonely US BBs but there were at least some against small US cruiser formations, they might give some examples for comparison the effectiveness of USN and KM AA. 

Juha


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## Glider (May 22, 2008)

I think its worth remembering that the 37/40mm was considered to be the most effective naval AA weapons as the 20mm lacked the range and punch to destroy the incoming aircraft before they dropped their weapons, whilst the HAA certainly pre proximity fuses were pretty ineffective.
With this in mind, the difference between the small number of German 37mm semi auo weapons, compared to the massed batteries of auto 40mm is huge. 

Its also remembering that we are talking in this thread about May 1941 when the USA didn't have any 40mm.


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## delcyros (May 22, 2008)

Hi Juha,

I always like your input. Your can quote things more easily when adding [] before and after the text [] -if You put the word


> in front of the passage and at it´s end with a [/... it will make things more accessable for readers:
> 
> 
> > before and after the text
> ...


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## starling (May 22, 2008)

come along now.nelson is best.lee.p.s can imperial users multiply inches by 25.4mm.and metric users vice-versa.you know what i mean dont you.thankyou.


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## Glider (May 22, 2008)

delcyros said:


> Before the advent of the VT-fuze, AA performance was unstatisfactory in US BB´s. During the 1940 trials of PENNSYLVANIA and three BB´s against radio controlled drones flying at 10.000ft. on straight course towards the BB, it was not possible to even hit the drone with the sec. guns. Another trial of four BB´s vs four drones ended with 1 drone crashed due to mechanical causes and one beeing damaged...



I heard of a similar story when part of the British Fleet were doing a demonstration in front of the Royal Family and some senior political guests. In the end, the operator was was told to crash the drone when he next saw a near miss.


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## Nightfall (May 22, 2008)

Hi Del

I am new to the forum, but have an interest in WWII naval, and would like to offer a few comments to the debate. My principle source in my post is British battleships of WWII, Alan Raven John Roberts, Arms Armour press, 1976



delcyros said:


> *Another striking weakness is the low degree of protection for the exposed turrets / barbettes, a weakness shared by KGV.*
> 
> From the sourced reference. "It is interesting to note, the high level of protection provided for turrets and barbettes in the US and French ships, relative to their side armour. In theory the thicknesses of the belt abreast the magazines, barbettes and turret faces should have been reasonably uniform - each is equally important and if anything the belt is more so, for given adequate proof against flash, a penetrated turret or barbette will only be put out of action, whereas a penetrated magazine might cause the total loss of the ship.
> 
> ...



It might be of interest that the heavily-armoured conning - tower was retained in the US, german and French navies. These structures were of little use, and added considerably to the top-weight and weight of armour. That of Bismarck did little to protect her officers communications and fire control arrangements, all of which suffered heavily in the early stages of her action with Rodney and KGV. by implication, this would suggest that the weight devoted to the armouring of the conning tower was a wasted effort

According to my reference, the modern BBs of the other navies could penetrate the armour of KGV slightly beyond the range she could penetrate theirs, however this is largely academic, given the typical engagement ranges of the time. These are of course very big generalisations, with issues like crew quality, radar, and of course tactics playing a significant role. also as a generalisation it can be said that the belt armour provided high of protection, with the disabling of a ship being more the result of damage to the control positions and unarmoured portions of the ship.


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## Freebird (May 22, 2008)

starling said:


> *come along now.nelson is best*.lee.p.s can imperial users multiply inches by 25.4mm.and metric users vice-versa.you know what i mean dont you.thankyou.



That was my opinion too, the Bismarck was a better "all round" ship because of the higher speed, but considering all aspects I feel that the Nelson would be superior in a "straight duel" {ie neither side seeks to flee}

By the way, welcome to the site Lee. 

P.S. add your vote to the poll if you want.

Cheers, Alex


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## Kurfürst (May 22, 2008)

Glider said:


> With this in mind, the difference between the small number of German 37mm semi auo weapons, compared to the massed batteries of auto 40mm is huge.
> 
> Its also remembering that we are talking in this thread about May 1941 when the USA didn't have any 40mm.



I am not going to disagree about the KM`s old semi-auto 3.7cm mount - it wasn`t ideal weapon at for its purpose, the 40mm Bofors or the later used high-ROF 3.7cm autocannons the KM borrowed from the LW. In defense of the early semi-auto 3.7cm its very high ballistic performance can be raised though - it was a sort of long range sniper gun, rather than a cannon. Also as you noted in 1941 all naval vessels lacked in the 37-40mm department, some did not even had a proper higher caliber AA automatic weapon at all, but only smaller caliber machineguns.


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## Juha (May 25, 2008)

Hello Delcyros
On cruisers vs Japanese aircraft
2 cases sprang up immediately in my mind. Firstly during the battle of Coral Sea on 7 May 42 TF 17.3, 2 CAs (HMAS Australia and USS Chicago) + CL HMAS Hobart and 2 DDs, was steaming independently without any fighter cover towards Port Moresby when attacked by 12 torpedo-carrying Bettys from 4th Air Group and 20 bomb carrying Nells from Genzan Air Group, in spite of Japanese claims the Allied ships emerged unscratched and shot down 4 Bettys plus one ditched on way back to the base and one was badly damaged. 

The other is the attack on 8th Aug 42 against Allied shipping off Guadalcanal, 23 Bettys attacked but AA fire from screening cruisers and DDs shot down at least 8, 4 more were shot down by Wildcats while withdrewing and one crashed on return. Altogether IJNAF lost 17 Bettys and only 5 severely damaged Bettys returned to Rabaul. Tagaya doesn’t give the reason of five losses, probably some more were lost to AA. One torpedo hit US DD Jarvis.

Losses from Osamu Tagaya’s Mitsubishi Type 1 Rikko ‘Betty’ Units of WW2

IIRC the problem with 1600 lb AP bombs during attack on Tirpitz was that pilots dropped them lower than specified in order to get max number of hits. So the gravity didn’t have time to accelerate them to high enough speed. So at least the story went, but clearly Tirpitz armour protection worked in that case. On the other hand if the dud was more or less in working order after penetrating the MAD it was it that case partly because FAA used too short timed delay-fuses. If the dud was too badly damaged during penetration so one can say that Tirpitz system more or less worked.

Juha


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## delcyros (May 29, 2008)

Nightfall said:


> Hi Del
> 
> I am new to the forum, but have an interest in WWII naval, and would like to offer a few comments to the debate. My principle source in my post is British battleships of WWII, Alan Raven John Roberts, Arms Armour press, 1976



Welcome aboard, Nightfall!
It´s good that You note Your sourc before posting, something of what I have been ignorant in the past, I apologize.



> From the sourced reference. "It is interesting to note, the high level of protection provided for turrets and barbettes in the US and French ships, relative to their side armour. In theory the thicknesses of the belt abreast the magazines, barbettes and turret faces should have been reasonably uniform - each is equally important and if anything the belt is more so, for given adequate proof against flash, a penetrated turret or barbette will only be put out of action, whereas a penetrated magazine might cause the total loss of the ship.


This theory is easy to understand but basically flawed. A turret knocket out is a serious issue and may even endanger the whole ship under unlucky conditions when the flash reaches enough main cartridges and the main propellent is unstable in nature (the principal danger in UK and japanese ships). On the other side, a magazine penetration is even more serious but You definetely need to base Your protection against the period AP-shells. APC projectiles of ww2 had generally a reliable delay fuze and excessive penetration figures, so it was better to have either something behind the main belt/barbettes in case the projectile penetrates (Bismarcks vitals) or in front of them (Littorio-class belt and turrets) in order to decap and shatter the whole projectile or to use excess thicknesses for this task (US and japanese turret and barbette armour). The 11.75" turret faces / barbettes of KGV do not have armour in front or behind and are prone to be defeated by all major calibre guns at any realistic fighting distance. At medium distance, they do not even provide protection against german and italian 8" and 11" APC rounds. So the question is why to have barbette / turret armour (and a protection concept) only able to defeat CL guns reliably when the principal danger comes from larger ships?



> British TDS was improved in the Vanguard, by increasing the height of the bulge compartments.


Agreed. It improved in many ways, f.e. to give access to an adjacent compartement only via ways leading generally above the main armour deck, a figure commonly found in german designs for providing a higher degree of watertight integrety (against progressive flooding).



> My source states that "there was no system of underwater protection in the Bismarck, apart from that afforded by an outside airspace (between the skin plating and the wing oil fuel tanks) and her protective bulkhead. Abreast the forward engine rooms and boiler rooms, there were no wing compartments, so thay leak in the protective bulkhead in these areas would have resulted in the flooding of a major machinery compartment. This is a serious deficiency when one considers that Bismarck had ten feet more beam than the majority of other BBs, and 15 ft more than the KGV class".


Then your source appears to be incorrect. The outboard void cell to extends for 2/3 of the TDS depth in beam (which is more important than space) before engaging a 20mm armoured bulkhead, a liquid filled compartment, the 45mm armoured main bulkhead and a bulwark way behind. Abreast the fwd. engine rooms the layout is identical altough there is a well known weakness in the area of the fwd. auxilary engine room, where there is no wing compartment at the lower edge of the main bulkhead, leaving a zone very wide in beam for void. this area indeed is a source of trouble in case the torpedoe warhead is large enough to produce a blast which has enough power to strike defeat the 45mm armoured bulkhead in a distance of 5m, agreed.



> These structures (CT´s) were of little use, and added considerably to the top-weight and weight of armour. That of Bismarck did little to protect her officers communications and fire control arrangements, all of which suffered heavily in the early stages of her action with Rodney and KGV. by implication, this would suggest that the weight devoted to the armouring of the conning tower was a wasted effort



Not necessarely. Keep in mind what happened with PoW during Denmark street: The ship was deprived from ship controll by a single 15" hit at medium distance (ca. 16.000 yards) and by firecontroll from two hits, beeing 8" and 15" respectively. Bismarck´s CT was exposed to closest range firing at which only excessive use of armour, such as demonstrated in Yamato and the latest US BB´s would have somehow helped her. Had PoW enjoied an 14.2" armoured CT, such as was in Bismarck, she would likely not have engaded the serious trouble following the hit and remained in posession of ship controll and at least partial firecontroll. Closest range engagements were not considered by the UK when designing the ships so there undoubtly was protection to get from armoured CT´s, even if only 14 to 16" would have been allocated. LION and VANGUARD again show heavily armoured CT´s.


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## Trautloft (May 30, 2008)

i voted for the Nelson, eventhough a direct duel with the Bismarck-class
could be interesting. The Hood had no chance because of the lack of thick armour, but Nelson/Rodney may have. they are my favourite battleships
beside Bismarck/Yamato/Iowa-class


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## delcyros (Jun 9, 2008)

Juha said:


> Hello Delcyros
> On cruisers vs Japanese aircraft
> 2 cases sprang up immediately in my mind. Firstly during the battle of Coral Sea on 7 May 42 TF 17.3, 2 CAs (HMAS Australia and USS Chicago) + CL HMAS Hobart and 2 DDs, was steaming independently without any fighter cover towards Port Moresby when attacked by 12 torpedo-carrying Bettys from 4th Air Group and 20 bomb carrying Nells from Genzan Air Group, in spite of Japanese claims the Allied ships emerged unscratched and shot down 4 Bettys plus one ditched on way back to the base and one was badly damaged.
> 
> ...



Thanks for sharing the informations, Juha!
I still think that downing twin engined Beattys is a bit easier to do than downing a single engined dive- or torpedobomber A/C with the period AAA instruments on hand. Nevertheless, they appear to be impressive records. Not to forget that AAA does not always need to down a plane to be successive! 

best regards,


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## trackend (Jun 9, 2008)

Im a Bismark voter the build quality was seen as being superb by many who had been on board, where as The Littorio was noted by a pre war admiralty visitor as very beautiful and luxurious with paneled ward rooms, spaceous gangways and large open mess decks. However as a fighting vessel these factors were to conspire against both it and her sister ship Vittorio Veneto (Swordfish by David Wragg).


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

Raises the question, who would win between the Veneto and the Bismarck, in say 1941 (given that both sides have no constraining orders regarding engagement). I have not thought this through properly, but my money is actually on the Italian BB. If you look at her closely, she was a very advanced ship


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## delcyros (Jun 10, 2008)

> Raises the question, who would win between the Veneto and the Bismarck, in say 1941 (given that both sides have no constraining orders regarding engagement). I have not thought this through properly, but my money is actually on the Italian BB. If you look at her closely, she was a very advanced ship



Vittorio Veneto does hold the advantage as long as endurance does not play a role. The advantage is very distinctive at long range.
Vittorio is significantly better protected but suffers from less protected stability (e.g. Bismarck will absorb more non critical hits).


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## Henk (Jun 10, 2008)

The German crew were very famous for being very good at aiming their battleships and I think that the Bismarck would be better in battle than the Italians. The Germans was also very well trained and if you also look at the Battle between the Bismarck and the Hood with the Prins of Wales you can note that the Germans was very well trained and could use everything they had on their ships.


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## Juha (Jun 10, 2008)

Hello Delcyros
Yes, Betty was big and vulnerable. On the other hand it was fast and was armed with probably the best aerial torpedo of that time which had more relaxed dropping parametres than other torpedos ie it could be dropped higher and at higher speed than the other aerial torpedos in use in 41-42.


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## parsifal (Jun 10, 2008)

Juha said:


> Hello Delcyros
> Yes, Betty was big and vulnerable. On the other hand it was fast and was armed with probably the best aerial torpedo of that time which had more relaxed dropping parametres than other torpedos ie it could be dropped higher and at higher speed than the other aerial torpedos in use in 41-42.



to say nothing of the increased launch range for the 21" torps they carried


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## delcyros (Jun 11, 2008)

Parsifal, Juha,

please keep track with the context. Not the thread imposed by Beatty torpedo bomber was under discussion but the AAA ability of the defending ships. With regard to this ability, target size, exposure time and vulnarability does play a role.


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## Juha (Jun 12, 2008)

Delcyros
Torpero release paramets are important for exposure times, higher speed reduced it. Higher release altitude increses options and made attack parameters more dificult to predict for defender. That's why for ex USN constantly improved their aerial torpedoes during the war.


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## parsifal (Jun 12, 2008)

Juha said:


> Delcyros
> Torpero release paramets are important for exposure times, higher speed reduced it. Higher release altitude increses options and made attack parameters more dificult to predict for defender. That's why for ex USN constantly improved their aerial torpedoes during the war.



Agreed completely. The torps used by the bettys were such that launch could be achieved outside the effective range of the Allied Light AA (ie 20mm and below).

Also, Divebombers were gnerally exposed to AA fire for longer than TB, and once committed to a dive, were extremely predictable in their flight path and with the pilot struggling to control the plane, not able to manouvre all that easily. For these reasons, D/Bs are generally considered the most vulnerable to AA fire

Compared to a swordfish, the betty was relatively better off because it could launch from a greater distance, and was much faster. The Swordfish, however, had the priceless advantage of being Night capable, probably more sturdily constructed, and apparently somewhat immune to enemy fire because of their low speed.

The german D/B suffered quite heavily against the Brits not because the brits possessed heavy AA (they didnt, until after 1943) but because they had to spend a relatively long time within the kill zone, and suffered the problems associated with ordinance delivery by D/B.

IMO, no-one, for various and differing reasons produced a really satisfactory Lt AA system. however, the best of the bunch were the Americans, who were very much enhanced by the extensive use of the bofors. The very heavy AA suites as compared to the Axis toward the end of the war is also worth mentioning. I know that i have somewhere the estimated ammunition expenditures per kill by the USN, which by late 1944 was about 1500 rounds per kill. By comparison, the land based flak units of the LW were expending about 16000 rounds per kill. Probably not comparable, however, as the primary target of the german flak at this time was high level bombers.


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## delcyros (Jun 13, 2008)

parsifal said:


> Agreed completely. The torps used by the bettys were such that launch could be achieved outside the effective range of the Allied Light AA (ie 20mm and below)



Light AA by this state of the war were not controlled by high angle / low angle FC systems and RPC. No Beatty released their torpedoes outside the effective range of 40mm /5" guns and it is questionable whether or not 20mm firing non mine rounds have a _decisive effect_ on twin engined bombers to justify this differentiation, but it is possible, at least.

As far as can be judged from Force Z, the Beatty torpedo bomber released their torpedoes from distances of about 2.000m, which would be well within effective firing range of 20mm light AA. 
The torpedoes indeed could be dropped at even larger distances but to what effect? Dropping range and deflection are in direct relationship with hitting probability.

I have not seen the damage report files of the US cruisers but will have a look to them for comparison.



> Also, Divebombers were gnerally exposed to AA fire for longer than TB, and once committed to a dive, were extremely predictable in their flight path and with the pilot struggling to control the plane, not able to manouvre all that easily. For these reasons, D/Bs are generally considered the most vulnerable to AA fire


Agreed.



> Compared to a swordfish, the betty was relatively better off because it could launch from a greater distance, and was much faster. The Swordfish, however, had the priceless advantage of being Night capable, probably more sturdily constructed, and apparently somewhat immune to enemy fire because of their low speed.



Wasn´t the Beatty called "type one lighter"?



> The german D/B suffered quite heavily against the Brits not because the brits possessed heavy AA (they didnt, until after 1943) but because they had to spend a relatively long time within the kill zone, and suffered the problems associated with ordinance delivery by D/B.



Agreed.



> IMO, no-one, for various and differing reasons produced a really satisfactory Lt AA system. however, the best of the bunch were the Americans, who were very much enhanced by the extensive use of the bofors. The very heavy AA suites as compared to the Axis toward the end of the war is also worth mentioning.


Agreed.



> I know that i have somewhere the estimated ammunition expenditures per kill by the USN, which by late 1944 was about 1500 rounds per kill. By comparison, the land based flak units of the LW were expending about 16000 rounds per kill. Probably not comparable, however, as the primary target of the german flak at this time was high level bombers.


As You have already mentioned, this comparison compares apples with oranges. There are ammunition breakdowns for naval vessels of KM and USN readily accessable in the net to make proper comparisons.
Note that naval AAA doesn´t "need" to kill in order to be successive.


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## Kruska (Jun 13, 2008)

Hello mates, 

Don’t let yourselves feel disturbed at your present topic by my posting. Regarding the title thread let me say very clearly;

*B I S M A R C K*

Regards
Kruska


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## parsifal (Jun 13, 2008)

*Light AA by this state of the war were not controlled by high angle / low angle FC systems and RPC*. 

Agreed. however the 20mm effectiveness was greatly increased in effectiveness later in the war, according to the Nav weapons site, which states as follows "In 1943 the revolutionary Mark 14 Gunsight was introduced which made these guns even more effective. This gunsight was developed by Dr. Charles Draper of MIT, who calculated that since the guns fired at relatively short ranges, a crude but simple and effective relative-bearing system could be used to control these weapons. The Mark 14 gunsight used two gyros to measure vertical and lateral rate of change, calculated the lead angle to the target aircraft and then projected an off-set aiming point for the gunner. Use of the Mark 14 did require that an electric power connection be provided to the formerly free-standing mountings. This gunsight was later adopted as part of the Mark 51 director which was used to control the 40 mm Bofors, greatly increasing their effectiveness" 

*No Beatty released their torpedoes outside the effective range of 40mm /5" guns and it is questionable whether or not 20mm firing non mine rounds have a decisive effect on twin engined bombers to justify this differentiation, but it is possible, at least*.

A "Beatty" is a wwi admiral in the RN. A "Betty" is either a womans name, or the code name for the principal land based torpedo bomber used by the IJN during the war.

The reference to a 40 mm I assume could be either a 2 pounder, or a bofors. A 2 pounder had a max range of 6200 metres (approximately), and an effective range of about 3400 metres. The Betty could not launch torps outside of 2000 metres, so it would on average be in the kill zone of the 2 pounder for about 15 seconds.

The Bofors had a theoretical range of about 10500 metres, but an effective range of about 3200-7000 m (depending on nationality and ammunition type), As a broad generalization the gun had an effective AA range of about 4000 metres. Against the betty target, it could engage for about 20-25 seconds before the torps were released. 

The US 5 In from memory had an effective range against aircraft of about 8500 metres (from memory, have not checked properly), If this is correct, the bettys would be under fire for abour 50 seconds

*As far as can be judged from Force Z, the Beatty torpedo bomber released their torpedoes from distances of about 2.000m, which would be well within effective firing range of 20mm light AA*. 

Ah, no. The effective range of the 20mm did not exceed 1000 metres until much later in the war (source Nav weapons). Incidentally, the main attackers of Fze Z were the much older Nells. If my memory is correct, the Bettys were not even committed, being held back as a reserve wave, if needed. 


*The torpedoes indeed could be dropped at even larger distances but to what effect? Dropping range and deflection are in direct relationship with hitting probability*.

Ah no, 2000 was the max efffective range for the Type 91 torps used by the IJN


Quote:
Compared to a swordfish, the betty was relatively better off because it could launch from a greater distance, and was much faster. The Swordfish, however, had the priceless advantage of being Night capable, probably more sturdily constructed, and apparently somewhat immune to enemy fire because of their low speed. 

Wasn´t the Beatty called "type one lighter"?
Yep, and the Swordfish was the Stringbag. both were unarmoured, and vulnerable. the Betty was more prone to ignition because of its unprotected fuel tanks, but the swordish was much slower. Its launch distance was 1500 yds @ 40 kts, or 3500 yds at 27 kts. AFAIK the longer range setting was not used against warships. because of the poor speed. That means that the exposure times for the stringbag was much greater when they were engaging the bismarck and Tirpitz (and the italians as well, of course). By simply turning to run in the same direction as the Swordfish a warship travelling at 30 ktd could reduce the closure rate to under 50 kts, particualrly in a headwind. 

Quote:
*I know that i have somewhere the estimated ammunition expenditures per kill by the USN, which by late 1944 was about 1500 rounds per kill. By comparison, the land based flak units of the LW were expending about 16000 rounds per kill. Probably not comparable, however, as the primary target of the german flak at this time was high level bombers. *

As You have already mentioned, this comparison compares apples with oranges. There are ammunition breakdowns for naval vessels of KM and USN readily accessable in the net to make proper comparisons.
Note that naval AAA doesn´t "need" to kill in order to be successive

I have not seen the average ammunition expenditures for any axis navies, Can you provide the links please, i would like to have a look.


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## delcyros (Jun 13, 2008)

parsifal said:


> the main attackers of Fze Z were the much older Nells. If my memory is correct, the Bettys were not even committed, being held back as a reserve wave, if needed.


Your memory is inaccurate. The third final attack was carried out by 26 Mitsubishi G4M 'Betty' torpedo bombers from the Kanoya Air Corps which are credited with the lethal hits on HMS REPULSE. 


> the Betty was more prone to ignition because of its unprotected fuel tanks, but the swordish was much slower. Its launch distance was 1500 yds @ 40 kts, or 3500 yds at 27 kts. AFAIK the longer range setting was not used against warships. because of the poor speed. That means that the exposure times for the stringbag was much greater when they were engaging the bismarck and Tirpitz (and the italians as well, of course).


Launch distance for the british torpedo in question was 200m - 1.740m in march 1942 during the attack against TIRPITZ.
The G4M was more likely to be hit in the first place due to it´s larger size. The typical AAA-shell by this time deployed fragmentation in spacial distribution not uncomparable to a spherical lense with positive mensicus (actually not absolutely true but not uncomparable, either). The great Swordfish torpedo bombers never attacked TIRPITZ. The famous air attack by HMS VICTORIOUS in march 1942 against BB TIRPITZ and DD FRIEDRICH IHN in open waters were carried out by Fairy Albacores instead.


> I have not seen the average ammunition expenditures for any axis navies, Can you provide the links please, i would like to have a look.


There are no ammo expendeture figures for navies, You will find some for individual ships and events.
The above mentioned Tirpitz incident can be found here:

SCHLACHTSCHIFF TIRPITZ | Schlachtschiffe Bismarck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau



> Die Flak hatte insgesamt 345 Schuß 10,5 cm, 4269 Schuß 37 mm und 20 mm verschossen, die MA etwa ein Dutzend Schüsse, während die 38 cm zwei volle Breitseiten gezieltes Sperrfeuer und zwei Salven Fernsperrfeuer abgegeben hatte.


ammo expendeture of TIRPITZ and the DD (2 Albacores downed, 3 further damaged):
4.1"/65: 345 rounds
light AA: 4.269 rounds (including 20mm)

Comparable ammo expendeture figures for US task forces are published in Campbell, Naval weapons of ww2 and related to oct-44 to jan.45:

Crosley's Secret War Effort - The Proximity Fuze

The numbers suggest not a decisisve difference in abilities altough the sample is smaller for Tirpitz and thus offers less statistical significance.

I have also filed down Prinz Eugens after action report for AAA actions in the Baltic campaign 1945 and altough I cannot publish them here (a legal question as a collegue has the rights to publish the material at first), I can assure You that the ammo expendeture figures and kills correlate even better than Tirpitz record 1942. The reason is not clear but her improved AA-suites (40mm batteries) and centimetric FC radar FuG-Berlin 0 may play a role.


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## HerrKaleut (May 21, 2009)

Sorry Freebird but if you want the two battleships to approach head on, Rodney (or Nelson) would only have been able to fire 6 of their 9 guns. They would also have the disadvantage of a larger "head on" silhouette. Presuming at some point in your battle the ships made a course alteration, the Bismark,being faster, would have an advantage and would presumably make for an area to the stern of Rodney (those Washington ships were bad at turning) and pound away.(presuming no major 16 inch hits.)
I must also say that Bismark lost gunnery control very early in the battle so she could,nt have concentrated on one ship. Also, scuttling charges or not,her hull integrity had been damaged to the extent that she was sinking.


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## Amsel (May 21, 2009)

I would have to go for the North Carolina class BB-55. It had a very good battery and secondary battery as well as a streamlined well armoured hull and great fire director.


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## vikingBerserker (May 21, 2009)

Amsel hit the nail on the head. 

The North Carolina (NC) had more armor firepower then the Bismark, and was 100ft shorter (smaller target). The only thing the Bismark on the NC was speed (2 knts faster) as stated in "_Battleship_" by Crescent


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## HerrKaleut (May 21, 2009)

Freebird, in your hypothetical engagement, a washington treaty ship(Rodney or Nelson) would only be able to fire 6 of her 9 in a head on approach, she would also have a larger head on silhouette, so the out come is not that simple.
Presuming your protagonists started manouvering, Bismark was the faster and would, I presume work her way (at long range) round to the stern of her opponant and, presuming no 16 inch hits, blast away whilst closing the range . (Nelson and Rodney were very slow in the turn) I'd bet on Bismark. So much for theory!!




This is the second attempt at posting this, I'm trying to fathom this site out!!!!


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## Amsel (May 21, 2009)

Welcome to the site, Herrkaleut. I hope you bring some interesting naval warfare conversation to the board, like your name implies.


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## Glider (May 22, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> Freebird, in your hypothetical engagement, a washington treaty ship(Rodney or Nelson) would only be able to fire 6 of her 9 in a head on approach, she would also have a larger head on silhouette, so the out come is not that simple.
> Presuming your protagonists started manouvering, Bismark was the faster and would, I presume work her way (at long range) round to the stern of her opponant and, presuming no 16 inch hits, blast away whilst closing the range . (Nelson and Rodney were very slow in the turn) I'd bet on Bismark. So much for theory!!
> 
> 
> ...



Firstly welcome to the site.

Secondly I am afraid I don't follow your posting. 
a) If the Rodney is head on to the Bismark then the Bismark is almost certain to lose as its 6 against 4. 
b) The Rodney would be the first to get a broadside off due to the ships layout.
c) The Bismark would be unable to work her way around the stern of the Rodney unless the Rodney is stupid enough to keep going in a straight line, which is more than a little unlikely. 
d) I like the phrase 'presuming no 16in Gun hits' If the RN can assume no 15in hits its would be a long hot day.


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## HerrKaleut (May 22, 2009)

Thank you Amsel, I will try. I must admit that there are some opinions that I have noticed that have raised an eyebrow so.."Alles auf gefecht statzion"....so to speak.!!!


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## HerrKaleut (May 22, 2009)

Interesting! Let us discuss...{Presuming Max range about 22 to 24 thousand yards}.
1)Agreed, 6 to 4 is numerically superior but the likelyhood of landing 6 shells onto an end on target with a compact head on profile profile with a closing speed of 50 plus knots (32 for Bismark, 28 max for Rodney/Nelson) is , to say the least, doubtful. The "Queen Anne's mansions" of R. and N. on the other hand woul have made a slab of a target for the german gun sights, not that i'm saying they would have got 4 out of 4. I envisage the Bismark a.s.a.p. opening her "A" arcs (still at long range) and crossing the"T" making it 8 to 6. That would negate your second point.
2)The R. and N. were notoriously slow in the turn as I said and given the accuracy of the german gunnery, I suspect that by the time all three turrets could bear there would be more than a little damage done to either guns or fire control. One of the concerns from the outset of this triple layout was the very likely possibility of a hit knocking out all three turrets in one go . (A lucky hit I will agree) but the Admiralty were very concened.
3) My presumption of no hits was a little tongue in cheek I must admit.
4) Bismark, having damaged her opponant, then goes hull down to the british directors , works her way round and spends the rest of the battle staying out of the british arc of fire (by virtue of better speed and turning ability)and hammers them in from the quarters. (or b, goes hull down and gets the hell out of there to fight another day.....more likely!!!!)

Scenario 2. Range 22 to 24 thousand yards and closing at 50 plus knots.
At around 20 000 yards both ships open fire, Bismark straddles after 3 salvoes, the inferior british gunnery systems take 5. Salvo 4 from Bismark knocks out the main directorand mid turret, the british 6th salvo hits Bismark with 2 shells, jamming turret Dora and causing engine room damage and speed reduction to less than 30 knots..........over to you..what happens next


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## vikingBerserker (May 22, 2009)

I believe Bismarck's guns had a range of 38k yards vs Rodney’s 35k yards. Since she has the speed, all she would need to do is stay outside of Rodney's guns and pound away. In the scenarios that you have posted, what really could have happened to the Bismarck could happen again. Lucky shots still count in war.


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## Glider (May 22, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> Interesting! Let us discuss...{Presuming Max range about 22 to 24 thousand yards}.
> 1)Agreed, 6 to 4 is numerically superior but the likelyhood of landing 6 shells onto an end on target with a compact head on profile profile with a closing speed of 50 plus knots (32 for Bismark, 28 max for Rodney/Nelson) is , to say the least, doubtful. The "Queen Anne's mansions" of R. and N. on the other hand woul have made a slab of a target for the german gun sights, not that i'm saying they would have got 4 out of 4. I envisage the Bismark a.s.a.p. opening her "A" arcs (still at long range) and crossing the"T" making it 8 to 6. That would negate your second point.
> 2)The R. and N. were notoriously slow in the turn as I said and given the accuracy of the german gunnery, I suspect that by the time all three turrets could bear there would be more than a little damage done to either guns or fire control. One of the concerns from the outset of this triple layout was the very likely possibility of a hit knocking out all three turrets in one go . (A lucky hit I will agree) but the Admiralty were very concened.
> 3) My presumption of no hits was a little tongue in cheek I must admit.
> ...



Taking it one point at a time
1) At the ranges we are talking about the profile of the ship really doesn't count for much as they are dots on the horizon. In reality both ships would open their arc of fire as sson as they were in effective range so initial stages its 6 vs 4 latterly 8 vs 9.
2) They may well have been slow in the turn but they don't have to turn far to get all the guns firing so that would cancel each other out. At long ranges both ships are more than likely going to miss each other but I would not doubt that the Bismark would have an initial advantage. Remember here that the QE and Shornhurst more or less tie for the honour of hitting the enemy at the longest range so any advantage would be short lived.
3) There is a major assumption here that the Bismark would not be hit or at least damaged. The 16in guns on the Rodney are more than capable of causing serious damage to the Bismark. In the actual battle one 16in hit, knocked out two of Bismarks turrets. 
4) Even if Rodney is damaged, the only way the Bismark could stay out of her arc of fire would be if the Rodney was stationary. It doesn't matter if the Rodney is only going 5 knots. If the Bismark wants to stay out of fire then she would be better off at close quarters not long range. If a ship is hull down on the horrizon, then visually you cannot tell if its going 10 kts or 40 kts.

Scenario 2 is way to fancifull. I might as well say Bismark hits with 4th salvo does little damage and the 6th from Rodney knocks out the Bismarks main director. If I remember correctly the Bismark lost her main director to an 8in shell. Or as Bismark turns away to lengthen the range the Rodney hits the stern with a couple of 16in totally ruining her day.


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## Glider (May 22, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> I believe Bismarck's guns had a range of 38k yards vs Rodney’s 35k yards. Since she has the speed, all she would need to do is stay outside of Rodney's guns and pound away. In the scenarios that you have posted, what really could have happened to the Bismarck could happen again. Lucky shots still count in war.



At 30,000+ yards almost certainly both sides would waste all their ammunition and have some explaining to do when they got home.


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## HerrKaleut (May 22, 2009)

Of course its fancifull. On a topic such as this one can extrapolate and theorise until the cows come home, and dream up as many scenarios as you can wish for but where Luck and chance are concerned(and there are large elements of both in a naval battle) one will never reach a conclusive result. You are correct in that Bismark would have been hit eventually, but I believe that the superior german gunnery system would have inflicted sufficient damage sooner in the engagement, to cause a drop in the efficiency of the british fire.


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## BombTaxi (May 22, 2009)

IIRC, QE scored hits on a target at 28000 yards to take the record for longest-ranged naval hit of WWII, and this was a fliuke, so arguing about maximum range of the various ship's guns is a moot point, as they will almost certainly be unable to hit anything at 35-38000 yds. Arguing over what hits each salvo will score is also entirely specious, as such things simply cannot be predicted. 

What can be said about Bismarck and Tirpitz is that they were not the uber-ships some histories have made them out to be - I believe that, ironically, this reputation stems from the disproportionate fear Churchill and the RN had of these two ships throughout the war. The Bismarck mission, other than destroying HMS Hood (which had been built with all the deadly flaws of her WWI predecessors) and exposing some flaws in RN communications and in the standard of gunnery, achieved absolutely nothing. Even drawing the RN off in a chase cannot be counted as a positive result, as the KM had no other major surface forces with which to exploit the distraction. The Tirpitz was more sucessful, drawing off valuable air resources which could have been used elsewhere in the European theatre. But I do not believe that battleships were of any use to the KM or the war it intended to wage. The money would have been better spent IMHO, on more pocket battleships, or on the 'cruiser-killers' proposed by Zenker in the 1920s. 

As for the original question, I think the most powerful BBs of the early war were the North Carolinas. For a start, they were one of the few BB classes in service that were not upgrades or hangovers from WWI designs. They were also fast and well armed, if a little under-armoured.


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## Torch (May 22, 2009)

Interesting link....Battleship Comparison


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## Amsel (May 22, 2009)

Thanks for the link. Nice find.


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## HerrKaleut (May 24, 2009)

just found a line in a ref. book (don't know if there is any relevence to the disussion) but tests done after the war on armour plates taken from the Tirpitz wreck(main belt,deck and side) showed that british 14 and 15 inch shells had no difficulty in complete penetration


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## Freebird (May 24, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> Sorry Freebird but if you want the two battleships to approach head on, Rodney (or Nelson) would only have been able to fire 6 of their 9 guns.



They would however probably turn about 15' - 20 deg. off from straight approach to bring all nine guns to bear, in the direction favored by the Bismarck {for retreat or advantage}

The British had the huge advantage of being able to design a ship that could almost always rely on being in a fleet of 2 - 4 BB, so would not be as concerned about the lack of rear firing turrets. 



BombTaxi said:


> As for the original question, I think the most powerful BBs of the early war were the North Carolinas. For a start, they were one of the few BB classes in service that were not upgrades or hangovers from WWI designs. They were also fast and well armed, if a little under-armoured.



Yes sadly for the British, the pre war muddle of different designs treaty requirements, the cancellation of the "Lions" left them without a truly modern, dominant BB.



Questions in our hypothetical discussion, suppose the Nelson and the Bismarck are closing in on each other {at about 20 -24 knots each} what would be their respective strategies? Do they try do close in to point-blank range? Or stay out at longer distances for plunging fire? How do the British prevent the faster German ship from getting into the rear arc?

{The hypothetical situation assumes the highly usual situation of the two ships meeting head to head with no other support }


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## Ivan1GFP (May 31, 2009)

Hello All,
Just joining in to this discussion. Strangely enough, I bought the book "Battleship Bismarck" today. Spent the last hour or two reading it. It is quite good.

First, I'll state a couple opinions and admit upfront that there isn't a lot of education to back them up:
The comment in the last post about the Bismarck being able to maneuver around the Rodney to get away from its all forward armament I believe is unreasonable. If the ships are close enough to make this possible, they are so close that it is already a slugging match and the battle should be decided before that happens. If the ships are far enough apart so that critical hits don't decide the battle quickly, the speed advantage isn't enough to make this maneuver possible unless the Rodney simply does nothing for a while.

I believe the dispersion problem mentioned earlier is mostly due to muzzle blast interference between the set of guns mounted in a turret. At least on the Iowa class, this was recognized and the gun firings were electrically staggered to reduce the effect. There is at least one very famous photograph of shells in flight from an Iowa class BB's guns that show that the shells are 20-100 feet apart (can't remember the exact distance because I never measured the separation versus the size of the guns or turret) as they leave the guns.

My belief is that the North Carolina would be the most powerful ship in a pure slugging match among the battleships listed here. Its guns are a class well above any of the other ships listed. Its protection is fair as is its speed.

- Ivan.


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## Freebird (May 31, 2009)

Ivan1GFP said:


> The comment in the last post about the Bismarck being able to maneuver around the Rodney to get away from its all forward armament I believe is unreasonable. If the ships are close enough to make this possible, they are so close that it is already a slugging match and the battle should be decided before that happens



I was wondering, suppose the Bismarck tried approaching the Rodney at full speed, when they came together both ships could fire a full broadside, but then as the Bismark passed behind the Rodney could fire the aft guns while turning AWAY from Rodney's turn. Would it work? {Assuming that both ships survived the point-blank broadside}}



Ivan1GFP said:


> Its guns are a class well above any of the other ships listed. Its protection is fair as is its speed.
> 
> - Ivan.



How are it's guns superior to others of the same caliber? {Nelson, Nagato Littorio all have 16" guns}


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## Amsel (May 31, 2009)

One of the things that really put the North Carolina at an advantage is the USN's understanding of ship armor. The armor on the US battleships was advanced. An AP hit to its vitals would be rendered ineffective before it hit the magazine or powerplant by its main armor belt, splinterdeck and then the additional plate protecting the vitals. The North Carolina's vitals would be impervious to any 14' hits and would explode 16" rounds at the outer hull plate plate before it could pentrate the main armor belt or the inner plate. The Bismarcks armor protection was very good as well. And it resisted scuttling very well. I think the battle would come down to luck and crew skill due to the toughness of these battleships.

I found this diagram but do not know the original source.


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## Glider (May 31, 2009)

freebird said:


> I was wondering, suppose the Bismarck tried approaching the Rodney at full speed, when they came together both ships could fire a full broadside, but then as the Bismark passed behind the Rodney could fire the aft guns while turning AWAY from Rodney's turn. Would it work? {Assuming that both ships survived the point-blank broadside}}


It would never happen




> How are it's guns superior to others of the same caliber? {Nelson, Nagato Littorio all have 16" guns}



Nelson and Nagoto had old 16in guns, Littorio had 15in.


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## Amsel (May 31, 2009)

_View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OmOQs0ziSU_

Thought this vid would be interesting and add to the conversation.


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## Freebird (May 31, 2009)

Glider said:


> It would never happen
> .



Why not?


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## Glider (May 31, 2009)

freebird said:


> Why not?



Because if both ships approached each other down to Point Blank Range head on they would turn broadside on before they reached each other. If for some unknown reason they decided to play chicken its most likely that both would be blazing hulks before they reached each other.

These shells weigh around 1,800lb Bismark - 2,000lb Nelson and at PB range they would each be getting multiple hits per shoot. 6 x 2,000lb 16in guns forward firing vs 4 x 1,800lb 15 in, both at PB range capable of penetrating each others protection, it just wouldn't happen.
Not forgetting the 6in secondary guns on each capable of doing damage to the more lightly protected areas of each ship and just for fun, the Nelson might torpedo the Bismark with its 24.5in torpedo tube as they passed.
Nope this would never happen

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## Freebird (May 31, 2009)

Glider said:


> Because if both ships approached each other down to Point Blank Range head on they would turn broadside on before they reached each other. If for some unknown reason they decided to play chicken its most likely that both would be blazing hulks before they reached each other.
> 
> These shells weigh around 1,800lb Bismark - 2,000lb Nelson and at PB range they would each be getting multiple hits per shoot. 6 x 2,000lb 16in guns forward firing vs 4 x 1,800lb 15 in, both at PB range capable of penetrating each others protection, it just wouldn't happen.
> Not forgetting the 6in secondary guns on each capable of doing damage to the more lightly protected areas of each ship and just for fun, the Nelson might torpedo the Bismark with its 24.5in torpedo tube as they passed.
> Nope this would never happen




Well then, what do you consider that each captain would try to do? The Nelson would probably like to keep the approach as long as possible, where they can fire all 9 guns and deny the Bismarck access to the rear 4. The Bismarck would like to get broadside as soon as possible to even up the guns 9 to 8


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## Glider (Jun 1, 2009)

They would both turn to fire full broadsides as soon as they were within effective range. As to what that is would depend on the Captains involved then it down to the training of the crews, equipment and dumb luck.


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## Ivan1GFP (Jun 2, 2009)

The 16 inch 45 Caliber on the North Carolina or 16 inch 50 Caliber gun on the Iowas launched a shell that was much heavier than the others. I believe they had at least two different weight shells and the heavier was 2700 pounds. The lighter shell was 2200 lbs IIRC. I believe that the weight of the shells is a better comparison of large naval guns than a simple comparision of bore diameter.

The concept of "effective range" isn't described easily by just one number.

- Ivan.


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## Stitch (Jun 2, 2009)

Ivan1GFP said:


> The 16 inch 45 Caliber on the North Carolina or 16 inch 50 Caliber gun on the Iowas launched a shell that was much heavier than the others. I believe they had at least two different weight shells and the heavier was 2700 pounds. The lighter shell was 2200 lbs IIRC. I believe that the weight of the shells is a better comparison of large naval guns than a simple comparision of bore diameter.
> 
> The concept of "effective range" isn't described easily by just one number.
> 
> - Ivan.



Close; there was the "AP" shell, which weighed in at 2,700 lbs., and the "standard" HE shell, which weighed in at 1,900 lbs.

BTW, for those of you interested in the Iowas, the best book out there is probably Malcolm Muir's "_The Iowa Class Battleships: Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri Wisconsin_"; it has a wealth of data, especially in the appendices, on everything from the armor, to the guns, to the projectlies, etc.


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## HerrKaleut (Jun 5, 2009)

Although completed on 4th April 1941 , North Carolina could not have taken part in our hypothetical duel as she was straight into dock for several months to sort out major problems with her geared turbines. She was not a good sea boat and was only armoured to withstand a 14 inch hit. she (and the Washington ) were also slow, having sacrificed speed for long range endurance


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## Amsel (Jun 5, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> Although completed on 4th April 1941 , North Carolina could not have taken part in our hypothetical duel as she was straight into dock for several months to sort out major problems with her geared turbines. She was not a good sea boat and was only armoured to withstand a 14 inch hit. she (and the Washington ) were also slow, having sacrificed speed for long range endurance



I believe the North Carolina was as well armored if not better armored then its contemporaries. It could withstand a 16" hit because of its three walled armor system around its vitals. Any 16" shell would be exploded and decapped at the outer armor and then the splinter deck as well as the inner armor plate would render the shot ineffective at disabling the ship. The three part armor was cutting edge and was improved even more with the Iowa class. The North Carolina was technologically superior to the Bismarck and I don't know why you cannot see that.


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## HerrKaleut (Jun 5, 2009)

Amsel, with respect I cannot see where I said that this ship was inferior to Bismark. I merely quoted a passagefrom the "Encyclopedia of the worlds warships" in which it states.."however,although the british ships were armoured against 16 inch(406mm) shell hits, the American vessels[North Carolina and Washington] were only protected against 14 inch(356mm) shell hits" (This same tome also mentions that the Iowas ,being armoured on the same scale as the South Dakotas,were thus less well protected than their British and japanese counterparts.)


As you have mentioned the Bismark, I thought I'd do a quick comparison purely out of interest

Side belt.....N.C.12in(305mm)....Bmk.12.75inch(323mm)
Deck,upper,N.C. 1.5in(37mm)....Bmk. 2in.(50mm).
Deck,main, N.C. 4.1in.(105mm)..Bmk. 1.2in(30mm)
Deck,armoured N.C....None......Bmk..4.7in(120mm)
Main turrets..N.C.16in(406mm)...Bmk.14.1in(360mm)
Barbettes...N.C...i6in(406mm)...Bmk..8.7in(220mm)

SHP(Total)..N.C...121,000........Bmk..138,000(designed)..150,000 trials
Speed.......N.C...28 knots........Bmk...30.1 knots


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## Glider (Jun 5, 2009)

As a comparison I have the following figures for the Nelson

Side Belt 14 inches
Deck Middle Deck 6.25 inches over Magazines, 3inches over machinery Spaces
Deck Lower 6.25 inches aft and over the steering gear
Main Turrets 16 inches
Barbettes 15 inches sides


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## trackend (Jun 6, 2009)

My choice is Bismark The Bismark took a hell of a hammering and actually proved her strength in a straight duel.
IMO actual combat beats speculation every time.


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## HerrKaleut (Jun 6, 2009)

Glider, I concur with those figures for Nelson and Rodney.

Given what has been posted on this subject, I'm inclined to give the original question to Rodney/Nelson.(I am curious why nobody mentioned the water protection sytem as part of her defences)

BTW..As Richelieu was not completed by May 41, should she be in the running?


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## Amsel (Jun 6, 2009)

HerrKaleut said:


> Amsel, with respect I cannot see where I said that this ship was inferior to Bismark. I merely quoted a passagefrom the "Encyclopedia of the worlds warships" in which it states.."however,although the british ships were armoured against 16 inch(406mm) shell hits, the American vessels[North Carolina and Washington] were only protected against 14 inch(356mm) shell hits" (This same tome also mentions that the Iowas ,being armoured on the same scale as the South Dakotas,were thus less well protected than their British and japanese counterparts.)
> 
> 
> As you have mentioned the Bismark, I thought I'd do a quick comparison purely out of interest
> ...



Armor is sometimes not an absloute science. What is an absolute is the advancement of USN armor systems in WWII. The USN was very much ahead in the employment of armor. You cannot look at the mainbelt as the indicator of best protection, but also the splinterdecks, and inner belt. By 1936 the USN had developed a mainbelt that was superior to anything put out by the IJN. With the USN BB's ability to defuse and decap up to 16" hits at the mainbelt ( which would still pentetrate) and then defeat the shell with a splinterdeck and a inner belt, plus the advancement in the USN ammunition over the IJN, put the USN at a huge technological advantage. But luck does rule the battlefield in many instances, and a hit is a hit. 
The Germans also knew how to armor their BB's, and the vitals on the Bismarck were impervious to any surface action. 
Torpedos and airpower are the equalizers in WWII battles including the heaviest ships of the line.

No USN BB's have ever been sunk due to naval gunfire.


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## trackend (Jun 6, 2009)

Amsel said:


> No USN BB's have ever been sunk due to naval gunfire.



Just a question How many battleship to battleship actions have USN vessels been involved in? 
I am not sure but I thought Manila was the closest it came to and that was mostly a Cruiser engagement.


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## Freebird (Jun 6, 2009)

trackend said:


> Just a question How many battleship to battleship actions have USN vessels been involved in?
> I am not sure but I thought Manila was the closest it came to and that was mostly a Cruiser engagement.



Only really one engagement in WWII, unlike the UK which had a bunch


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 6, 2009)

Actually after Pearl Harbor, the USN never lost another BB for any reason and they were quite active.


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## hartmann (Jun 6, 2009)

> Actually after Pearl Harbor, the USN never lost another BB for any reason and they were quite active.



There were only two times where American BBs engaged another enemy BB:

One in Guadalcanal in November 15 of 1942, when It was completelly surprised the "South Dakota" by the "Kirishima" and some cruisers. It would have been sunk If the "Kirishima" would have carried AP shells, or If the Heavy cruisers would haven´t failled with torpedoes launched at It. It received some 40 shells, mainly HE, and some AP of light calibre (from the heavy cruisers) without any response shot.

Just only minutes after, the "Washington" appeared and engaged the "Kirishima". It was heavy pounded at less than 8000 metres and all the Japanese ships retreated. At last, the "Kirishima" was scuttled by the crew because It was impossible to evacuate It or repair It in the Islands.

The second time was in Surigao, in the October 24 of 1944. I can´t conclude If the old BBs were superior to their japanese counterparties, as It was a completely unbalanced action, were the Japanese were completely overruned and outnumbered.



> By 1936 the USN had developed a mainbelt that was superior to anything put out by the IJN



It was in fact not the best armour type (class "A" armour I mean). Much less capable than Krupp or Vickers cemented steels, and scarcelly better than IJN "old type" Vickers cemented.



> With the USN BB's ability to defuse and decap up to 16" hits at the mainbelt ( which would still pentetrate)



How can you explain that a main belt of just only 12 Inches of "A" class armour and scarcelly 1,8 Inches of STS steel over It would defeat even a shell of 14 Inches at short ranges. Could You explain it more deeply? 
I am extremelly exceptical about It.



> and then defeat the shell with a splinterdeck and a inner belt,


 
There wasn´t any internal belt in the "North Carolina". It was external, and there wasn´t nothing more.
By contrast, the "Bismarck" played with array spaces and had a 320 mm main belt of Krupp armour, and behind of this It had another 120 mm of homogeneous rolled steel incllined at some 22º. (the same way for the Italian "Littorios", altought with different thicknesses). 

I hope It can help something. Best regards to all


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## Amsel (Jun 6, 2009)

North Carolinas' 
vs 1500 lb 14" AP shells from 14"/50 = 19,000-31,000 yds (11,000 yds wide) 
vs 2240 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 21,300-27,800 yds (6,500 yds wide) 

South Dakotas' 
vs 2240 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 17,700-30,900 yds (13,200 yds wide) 
vs 2700 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 20,500-26,400 yds (5,900 yds wide) 

Iowas' 
vs 2240 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 17,600-31,200 yds (13,600 yds wide) 
vs 2700 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 20,400-26,700 yds (6,300 yds wide) 

Montanas' 
vs 2240 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 16,500-34,500 yds (18,000 yds wide) 
vs 2700 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 18,000-31,000 yds (13,000 yds wide)

Armor "science" is far from perfect and the USN knew it. They knew that in real world circumstances a hit from a 16" shell would not always be refused. The North Carolina did have an inner belt around its immunity zone. It difffered from the later heavily armored USN BB's by not having a continous inner belt like the Iowa class. It was designed to decap and defuse 14" to 16" AP shells with its incline and bursting pan method (splinter deck, inner belts) of protection. The USN caisson tests are confusing and I don't know if any armor was designed to defeat heavy shells at close range mostly due to the fact that a close range duel between BB's was not likely or tactically sound, and the weight could be spared for other uses. The general USN policy was to design the outer belt to defeat itws own caliber at a reasonable range. There are too many departures from modelling for anyone to say if a main belt would be impervious to a 16" hit. That is why in almost all my posts I explained the importance of a double or triple deck.
The 2700# shell used by the North Carolina was a beast and gave the USN a distinct advantage over the other navies 16" shell. In a straight duel, I repeat that luck and crew skill would play the deciding role as it had for four centuries.


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## hartmann (Jun 7, 2009)

> North Carolinas'
> vs 1500 lb 14" AP shells from 14"/50 = 19,000-31,000 yds (11,000 yds wide)
> vs 2240 lb 16" AP shells from 16"/45 = 21,300-27,800 yds (6,500 yds wide)
> 
> ...



That was completely theoretical calculus. Much as the 3 Inches gun mounted in Sherman Tanks (It should penetrate the 100 mm front plate of Tiger AusF E well passed 1600 metres. In real world, It was incapable to make this even at straight on 500 metres range. In a ship,there are movements in three dimensions of space (pitching, rolling, yawing, ect...) and It is very dificult to make a completely sure immunity zone.



> Armor "science" is far from perfect and the USN knew it.



Completely right 



> The North Carolina did have an inner belt around its immunity zone.


 No, There was no inner belt:







You can see It in the drawing.



> It was designed to decap and defuse 14" to 16" AP shells with its incline


It was "designed" to burst shells in the 14" range, because this was its original main battery, but not 16" shells (much less superheavy shells). And there was no inclined belt. It vas vertical.



> and bursting pan method (splinter deck, inner belts) of protection.



but tihis is with high obliquity shells, which penetrate decks, not shells which impact by the belt (until 20-22000metres, maybe more).




> The USN caisson tests are confusing



 Caisson tests are made to prove the quality of a torpedo defence system, not to prove the ability to refuse an AP shell.



> I don't know if any armor was designed to defeat heavy shells at close range mostly due to the fact that a close range duel between BB's



The German and Italian spaced arrays worked pretty well between 0 metres to 27000 metres with the belt, and from 15000 to 30000 metres in armoured deck attacks.



> The general USN policy was to design the outer belt to defeat itws own caliber at a reasonable range.



For this reason, the North carolinas were only "proof" versus 14" shells (and by the way, not the superheavy 14" shells made in the 1943 year). they were designed to carry a main battery of between 10 to 12 guns of 14 Inches. Only when It was designed all the armour system and when It wasn´t ratified by Japan the Naval limit treaty of 14 Inches guns when The Us Bureau proposed to arm them with 16 Inches guns.



> There are too many departures from modelling for anyone to say if a main belt would be impervious to a 16" hit.



Completely right.



> That is why in almost all my posts I explained the importance of a double or triple deck.



Yes, but for high obliquity shells which impact in the decks, not in the main belt. That is the policy of the German/Italian designs, and to a lesser extent the lasts US designs.



> The 2700# shell used by the North Carolina was a beast and gave the USN a distinct advantage over the other navies 16" shell.



It was a very late improvement If We compare the other contenders in 1941. It was only used from mid 1942. Not earlier. 
Also, It had disadvantages. With a so heavy shell and too near muzzles, It couldn´t fire all the three guns of the turret at the same time because It generated dispersion patterns in the "North Dakota" and "South Dakota" classes (for this reason They carried a coil delaying system). Even the "Iowa" class was not completely free of these problems.

I hope this can help. Best regards ¡¡


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## Amsel (Jun 7, 2009)

hartmann said:


> It was in fact not the best armour type (class "A" armour I mean). Much less capable than Krupp or Vickers cemented steels, and scarcelly better than IJN "old type" Vickers cemented.



From Nathan Okum


> I have the results of the examination of German Krupp armor plants and
> their own test plates made before and during WWII. The plants were still
> using WWI-era equipment (no improvements at all, from what the Allied
> examiners could see) and the results for German KC n/A plates in the 8-10"
> ...



Everyone has a favorite ship and the Bismarck is a great ship. But it was not the invincable ship that it was made out to be. I have read many reports recently about the battle and the damage that is documented aboard the Bismarck. I honestly think that the North Carolina class could give her a run for the money. But looking backwards in time is inconsistant sometimes especially regarding that the Bismarck is underwater and the North Carolina is in mothballs waiting for the next big war to be recommissioned, so not able to do ballistics testing.
Another factor is the amount of armor on the citadel, turrets and barbettes of the North Carolina. In WWII these areas are what took the majority of the hits. The North Carolina clearly outclasses the Bismarck in this area which is important due to the ratio of hits in this area compared to beltline hits. The North Carolinas guns made the Bismarck vulnerable up to 26,000 though she had that deck slope behind the belt. The Bismarcks turrets were vulnerable at any range. Bismarck's decks were vulnerable past about 20-21,000 but it was also possible for North Carolinas guns to punch through the upper belt thern still penetrate the MAD from around 16,000 out.


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## Juha (Jun 7, 2009)

Hello Hartmann
A couple short notices
Only one of the hits on South Dakota on 15 Nov 42 was 14”. So I doubt very much that SD would have sunk if Kirishima have had proper AP shells.

The belt of North Caroline was inclined , see Amsel’s message #192 , the picture is from a good book, I can give you the title, if you want.

Juha


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 7, 2009)

hartmann said:


> There were only two times where American BBs engaged another enemy BB:



I think you misread my post. I stated the USN after Pearl Harbor never lost another BB for ANY reason, not just from BB/BC encounters.

The US was the only major power that could state this - with the exception of Russia due to the lack of BB/BC's.


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## renrich (Jun 7, 2009)

I echo Juha by saying that South Dakota would probably have not been sunk if Kirishima had been using AP ammo. Modern BBs were all extremely difficult to sink with shellfire and South Dakota was no exception.


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## Soren (Jun 7, 2009)

I say the Bismarck, but only because of its' superior optics.


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## Njaco (Jun 7, 2009)

I thought you would have said the "Littorio".


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## hartmann (Jun 7, 2009)

Hello Amstel. 



> From Nathan Okum
> 
> I have the results of the examination of German Krupp armor plants and
> their own test plates made before and during WWII. The plants were still
> ...



It is completely contradictory with my documents from German, British and even US origin. I wouldn’t take as gospel what Nathan Okun says. 
All the German armour steel lots were checked and all had to pass a very strict (probably the most strict of any nation) ballistic and metallurgical number of tests, all the way. 
Also, He doesn’t cite the fact that the III barbette of the Battleship "Missouri” cracked caused only by mechanical stresses running at high speed. Also the other cracks which are present in other parts of the ship which were detected after this incident.



> The sterns of several German WWII warships -- including BISMARCK --
> literally breaking off under shock from a torpedo hit shows poor design
> practice



The sterns of Bismarck and another KM ships were perfectly designed. He takes account of some misleading facts.



> AND poor welding skill





We should ask him If He knows about the multiple maritime disasters and quasy disasters of the merchant ships class "Liberty" thanks to poor design and badly executed weldings, or about the bad design of Bows in American cruisers, which tended to fail when struck by torpedoes, or even by only ocean waves, as the Heavy cruiser "Pittsburgh". 

By the way. It’s difficult to think this, when after the war all the German welding manuals and procedures captured were translated and used as a standard basis for the new metallurgical parameters in US manufacture.



> Everyone has a favorite ship and the Bismarck is a great ship.



This ship isn’t my favourite (I prefer the "Tirpitz" 8) to the "Bismarck", and as powerful, I only can go for the "Yamato").



> But it was not the invincable ship that it was made out to be.



I never have claimed such thing. 
By the way, It isn’t the pure garbage which a lot of people tends to think. It was a very good designed ship.



> Another factor is the amount of armor on the citadel, turrets and barbettes of the North Carolina. In WWII these areas are what took the majority of the hits. The North Carolina clearly outclasses the Bismarck



The "North Carolina" doesn’t surpass the "Bismarck" class (compare the weight of armour steel used in both and the length of the armoured citadel of both also). The only thing were it was only slightly more protected was in the turrets, with 16 inches of homogeneous armour versus 14-14,50 inches of cemented armour.



> The North Carolinas guns made the Bismarck vulnerable up to 26,000 though she had that deck slope behind the belt.



From the belt was almost invulnerable at any range, especially the more the range, the more difficult to penetrate It as It had this slope in the deck plus the air gap between them, which made It virtually impervious to all shell by decapping/yawing and fusing activation. Concerning decks, it was the same thing. The “Bismarck” first had a decapping deck of 50 mm to 80 mm and after that, some 5 metres below (air gap), the “Panzerdeck”, which were another 100 mm of steel. The North Carolina had only an armoured deck of only 90 to 105 mm mm (3,6 to 4,1 Inches). Take also a “weather deck” of 32 mm, but not very spaced between them (just only a couple of metres).

Also, the guns of the “Bismarck” were very capable of defeat all the vertical armour of the ship, and also the horizontal armour.
All tends to indicate that both were capable of sink mutually (depending of the first shot).




> Bismarck's decks were vulnerable past about 20-21,000



No. It hadn’t enough obliquity to punch trough both armoured decks and air gap.



> it was also possible for North Carolinas guns to punch through the upper belt thern still penetrate the MAD from around 16,000 out.



It would be an extremely lucky shot.
It is decapped by the upper belt (145 mm of cemented steel), which suppose the elimination of some 150 Kg of the shell (all the piercing cap). It could be damage or not the fuse, but It was also yawed (some 15% of kinetic energy less. To reach the MAD, It would have to be rejected in almost perpendicular direction to the impact in the belt. 
So I wouldn’t say impossible, but very improbable.



> ] Hello Hartmann
> A couple short notices
> Only one of the hits on South Dakota on 15 Nov 42 was 14”. So I doubt very much that SD would have sunk if Kirishima have had proper AP shells.



Hello Juha 

Yes, I know it. A common high capacity HE shell type 0.
But If you take in account that the Us Naval report damage states that an AP shell of the heavy cruisers (just only 203 mm) punched trough the hull plate, trough 32 mm of STS steel over the main belt and finally another 207 mm of main belt and finished stuck here, you can see that If It would have been a AP shell of the Kirishima, It would have gone trough the entire belt and finished in the vitals.

If you read Norman Friedmann book, in the page 279:
“Her unlucky companion, the “Souht Dakota”, achieved little except to demonstrate that even modern battleships could be severely damaged at short range by cruiser and destroyer fire”.



> The belt of North Caroline was inclined , see Amsel’s message #192 , the picture is from a good book, I can give you the title, if you want.



Yes, it is true. It is inclined some 15º. 
I confused ship armour schemes (I vaguely remembered the KGV armour scheme and mixed It with the "NC"). Sorry by this. 
I have this book also. Pretty good. 



> Quote:
> Originally Posted by hartmann
> There were only two times where American BBs engaged another enemy BB:
> 
> I think you misread my post. I stated the USN after Pearl Harbor never lost another BB for ANY reason, not just from BB/BC encounters.



Ok. I understand now what you liked to say.



> The US was the only major power that could state this - with the exception of Russia due to the lack of BB/BC's



Soviet Union had 3 old battleships, and one of them was sunk by bomb attack (the battleship “Marat”) in Kronstadt. 



> I echo Juha by saying that South Dakota would probably have not been sunk if Kirishima had been using AP ammo. Modern BBs were all extremely difficult to sink with shellfire and South Dakota was no exception.



Well, that is not so difficult. 
You only have to shell the ends of the ship even with low calibre shells and make water flow to the ship. Then it comes at a point were the metacentric stability is not enough to compensate the roll produced by waves and It will capsize, even with relativelly low damage to the vitals. In this matter it must be considered the buoyancy and not to have excessive topweigh, among with a high metacentric height (it will remain afloat more time).

I hope It can help something. Best regards


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## Amsel (Jun 7, 2009)

hartmann said:


> This ship isn’t my favourite (I prefer the "Tirpitz" 8) to the "Bismarck", and as powerful, I only can go for the "Yamato").
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I am sorry if I came across wrong. I highly respect your knowledge and I agree that the Bismarck was a great ship. I am beginning to think though that the Littorio had some of the best armor of the Axis naval forces though. What is your take on that?


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## Soren (Jun 7, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I thought you would have said the "Littorio".



Nah, I like being able to land a hit first, which is something the Bismarck is known for


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## Juha (Jun 7, 2009)

Hello Hartmann
my point was that Kirishima made only one hit and even if it have used AP shells, that would not have changed that.

Quote: "But If you take in account that the Us Naval report damage states that an AP shell of the heavy cruisers (just only 203 mm) punched trough the hull plate, trough 32 mm of STS steel over the main belt and finally another 207 mm of main belt and finished stuck here, you can see that If It would have been a AP shell of the Kirishima, It would have gone trough the entire belt and finished in the vitals."

I know that but because 8" gun of IJN had clearly higher MV than the 14" gun of Kongo class I'm not so sure on the ability of 14" AP shell to pierce the belt of SD at that range. Possibly but anyway Kirishima didn't hit the belt of SD.

Juha


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## hartmann (Jun 8, 2009)

Hello Amsel 



> Quote:
> Originally Posted by hartmann
> This ship isn’t my favourite (I prefer the "Tirpitz" to the "Bismarck", and as powerful, I only can go for the "Yamato").
> 
> ...



No shame. Don’t worry by that. 
I enjoy speaking about ships. 



> I highly respect your knowledge



A lot of Thanks. 



> I am beginning to think though that the Littorio had some of the best armor of the Axis naval forces though.



I have seen works of this ship and a report made by British authorities after these ships were interned and all tends to indicate that those three ships Littorio, Vittorio Veneto and Roma, were built with very tight control systems, something strange in Italy, were the finishing of the manufactured products could be in this era very irregular, I think that this control was made by the own chief designer of the ships, Umberto Pugliese, which tended to visit frequently the docks were they were being built. 
Regarding to armour, those ships had a very good quality steel plates, both the Vickers Terni cemented plates (very similar to the British Vickers cemented), and the homogeneous rolled steel plates, (AOD), a Chromium- Vanadium-Molybdenum steel, with some similarities to late German armour plates of tanks (not Navy, slightly different, which were Chromium-Molybdenum-Copper-Boron steel). 
Also, the concept of armour scheme was spaced array, much like the German thinking. 

They both countries played with decapping, yawing and fusing ideas (curiously, the US Navy also thought in this idea, but to fuse aerial bombs, the weather deck of 32-38 mm was put for this reason, but It was too little for heavy or very heavy shells), instead of put very thick plates and after them nothing. It was just another different point of view, different from the common wisdom of “AoN” schemes.



> What is your take on that?



I highly consider these ships. The main problem which I find in them is the bad rough sea qualities and stability. They were very good ships in the Mediterranean (generally a very calm sea). 
But If They had been operating in the Atlantic Ocean, or in the Arctic sea, they probably would have been troubles, especially if they took high water by damage. They had a very little metacentric height (but they had a big buoyancy reserve, so it was half compensated). But this is my honest opinion. 



> Hello Hartmann
> my point was that Kirishima made only one hit and even if it have used AP shells, that would not have changed that.
> 
> Quote: "But If you take in account that the Us Naval report damage states that an AP shell of the heavy cruisers (just only 203 mm) punched trough the hull plate, trough 32 mm of STS steel over the main belt and finally another 207 mm of main belt and finished stuck here, you can see that If It would have been a AP shell of the Kirishima, It would have gone trough the entire belt and finished in the vitals."
> ...



Hello Juha 

The MV was not very high (It was 775m/s) but they weight a lot more (some 673, 5 Kg according to Campbell book and to the US Navy records), and considering the range of the engagement (some 7000-8000 metres), I personally think that it was more than capable.

We have to consider that the guns of the KGV class had less MV (732 m/s) and that it was capable of punch trough 396 mm of cemented plate at 10000 yards. It was heavier, but it had less MV. 

Also, if we take in account the 16 Inches L45 guns of the “NC”, we see that in a brand new gun, the MV was of only 701 m/s (average gun, with eroded barrel, some 650-680m/s).
At 10000 metres, the “Kirishima “ AP shell, carrying a velocity of 576 m/s it was enough to punch trough a plate of more than its calibre (356 mm) so, it could defeat the main belt. May be not the barbettes, but I think that It could do trough the belt. This was my point.

A lot of thanks and best regards


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## Juha (Jun 8, 2009)

Hello Hartmann
The belt of SD being 12.2” on 0.875” STS inclined 19 deg and there well might have also been an horizontal component, because SD and Kirishima might well not been exactly abeam each other during the firefight. That’s why I don’t have any firm opinion on the ability of IJN 14” to penetrate.
According to my info British 14” AP weighted 721kg and had MV of 757m/s.

Juha


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## Ivan1GFP (Jun 8, 2009)

Hi VikingBerserker,

Regarding the Russians never having lost a battleship, I thought they lost the Marat to a bombing attack?

- Ivan.


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 8, 2009)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Hi VikingBerserker,
> 
> Regarding the Russians never having lost a battleship, I thought they lost the Marat to a bombing attack?
> 
> - Ivan.



Russia only had a total of 3 battleships for the entire war and tech speaking you are correct. The Marat was damaged with the bow in the water, but the Russians used the rear part as a gun battery (have to give them credit for that). She was towed to Leningrad after the war and reclassified as an artillary ship Volkhov.


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## Ivan1GFP (Jun 13, 2009)

Hi VikingBerserker,

Would you say that the aft end of the Marat was in significantly better shape than the aft end of the Arizona after Pearl Harbor?

- Ivan.


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## vikingBerserker (Jun 14, 2009)

Combat wise? yes. Pissing off an entire country wise? No!


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## Freebird (Jun 14, 2009)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Hi VikingBerserker,
> 
> Would you say that the aft end of the Marat was in significantly better shape than the aft end of the Arizona after Pearl Harbor?
> 
> - Ivan.



In fact, the damaged BB's guns were of considerable help in defending Leningrad during the Geman attacks 1941 - 1943


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## delcyros (Jun 14, 2009)

Hmmm, a lot of discussion since I have been around.

one quick observation:
A) The USN´s outer belt was never intended to be a decapping belt. This interpretation was born out in the eighties by Nathan Okun. Primary sources imply that the 1.25 in (SOUTH DAKOTA) and 1.5in (IOWA) STS enforced hullplate is just a splinterprotection (decapping is never ever mentioned), barely thick enough to stop large calibre APC, lateral fragmentation.
It actually WORKS against US projectiles in a way we should expect this hullplate to decap US 16in APC and this is very well demonstrated by Nathan Okun. Unfortunately, his assumption that this also works on every other nations APC turned out to be wrong and he admitted this in his decapping revisited article 2003. 
The only nation to truly understand decapping and even made a habit out of this phenomen was Italy. Their decapping belt is in fact much thicker (70mm instaed of 38mm) and barely strong enough to ensure decapping of their 15 in APC. Krupp APC fall in the same range but we do not know anything from japanese or french APC.
The bottomline is that the so called decapping belt of later US battleships will fail to decap large calibre german and italian APC altough it likely will successfully decap US and british APC. 

However, since no primary documentation suggests decapping functions for the plate in question, we shouldn´t put to much weight into this. It appears to be more important that the waterline protection for SOUTH DAKOTA IOWA (but not NORTH CAROLINA or the planned MONTANA!) is particularely weak against flat trajectory hits, which could bypass the class A belt and strike defeat the lower class B belt extension at almost any range inside 30.000 yard. 
The hittable target area is small but not insignificant and points us to the conclusion that every naval design had their hot spots on their own. That beeing said, the US fast battleships were great fighting units. Technically sophisticated and second to none.


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## renrich (Jun 17, 2009)

Always good to hear from friend Del. Very informative!


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## Ivan1GFP (Jun 19, 2009)

Hello Delcyros,

This is something I believe you can answer easily. What level of accuracy is expected of a good battleship gun from an angular dispersion standpoint? What angular dispersion would one expect from a full broadside?

- Ivan.


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## delcyros (Jun 21, 2009)

Thanks Renrich for the kind words.

Ivan, Your question cannot be answered in general. It has to be answered from case to case. Typical broadside conditions would yield less dispersion than cross level firing (via bow or stern) unless the battleship is equipped with a modern cross level firing gear (modern fast BB´s were but older ones (HOOD) typically had no such FC upgrades. I say typically because in the british case rebuilds may have included them. Not always but certainly in some cases like WARSPITE).
The next difference applies to the broadside geometry, turret design and mountings. Some ships had pretty tight dispersion patterns others were good or inconsistent with the french quad turret armed BB´s (DUNKERQUE RICHELIEU) finally beeing the worst of the whole bunch.

To state a common figure from many samples of guntrials in the interwar period gives a longitudinal dispersion of +- 100 yards (1 Sigma or 66.6% probability) and +-150 yards (2 Sigma or 94% probability) for the battleships COLORADO, MARYLAND and WEST VIRGINIA for a broadside target in 12.800 yards distance. 
This would translate into an angular dispersion of roughly +-0.36 degrees (2 Sigma) for this case. ut fire controll solutions are usually not simple.


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## dahlhorse (Oct 22, 2009)

First off the Bismarck was already listing some to port; also it could not steer so that it keep a steady course for shot fall accuracy; and it had enemy ships firing on it from all sides; had the Prinz Eugen stayed with the Bismarck this final battle would have been completely different; the slow Rodney had it taken a hit from a steerable Bismarck would have been punished badly same goes for KGV. Also the Bismarck could have been towed within Luftwaffe cover by the PE.


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## Glider (Oct 22, 2009)

dahlhorse said:


> First off the Bismarck was already listing some to port; also it could not steer so that it keep a steady course for shot fall accuracy; and it had enemy ships firing on it from all sides; had the Prinz Eugen stayed with the Bismarck this final battle would have been completely different; the slow Rodney had it taken a hit from a steerable Bismarck would have been punished badly same goes for KGV. Also the Bismarck could have been towed within Luftwaffe cover by the PE.



I am sorry but I have to disagree with you. All that would have happened if the PE had stayed with the Bismark is that the PE would have been sunk as well.

To assume that the Rodney would have been punished by one hit from the Bismark is a huge assumption, the Rodney was a tough ship which was well protected, with a well trained and experienced crew. The 16in guns on the Rodney were very effective and its worth remembering that one hit from the Rodney knocked out two of the Bismarks 15in gun turrets.


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## Freebird (Oct 27, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> I think you misread my post. I stated the USN after Pearl Harbor never lost another BB for ANY reason, not just from BB/BC encounters.
> 
> *The US was the only major power that could state this* - with the exception of Russia due to the lack of BB/BC's.



No, actually the British could make a similar claim as well.

The US lost Battleships at Pearl Harbour in Dec 1941
The RN lost 3 Battleships in Nov/Dec 1941, and then lost no more from any causes.


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## Vincenzo (Oct 27, 2009)

Also soviet lost a BB in september '41 and not more in the war (they have only 3 old "Gangut" class BB but non lack completely)


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## parsifal (Oct 27, 2009)

For me, out of that list , and given the extremely biased parameters of the question, I would have to say Bismarck. This is not because I think the Bismarck was the best overall ship, but because of the literal interpretation one has to give the question....what was the most powerful ship in a straight out duel, May 1941?.

I am pretty sure that North Carolina in May 1941 was not operational, and neither was Littorio, the latter having been laid up as aresult of the Taranto attacks. I understand she was still working up after having been repaired. 

Richelieu was still not completed at that time.

Nelson and Nagato were older ships, lacking the protection and gunnery refinements generally attributed to Bismarck. So, more by default than any great attribute of the design, the prize has to be awarded to Bismarck


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## Vincenzo (Oct 27, 2009)

parsifal said:


> was not operational, and neither was Littorio, the latter having been laid up as aresult of the Taranto attacks. I understand she was still working up after having been repaired.



From Volume I (statistical data) of "La marina italiana italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale" at 1st may there were 4 BB with the fleet ("pronte all'impiego") it's easy think that both Littorio and Vittorio Veneto was in this number (like the Cesare and Doria)


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## vikingBerserker (Oct 27, 2009)

freebird said:


> No, actually the British could make a similar claim as well.
> 
> The US lost Battleships at Pearl Harbour in Dec 1941
> The RN lost 3 Battleships in Nov/Dec 1941, and then lost no more from any causes.



But that was after having lost the Royal Oak on 10/39 and Hood on 5/41.


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## vikingBerserker (Oct 27, 2009)

Vincenzo said:


> From Volume I (statistical data) of "La marina italiana italiana nella seconda guerra mondiale" at 1st may there were 4 BB with the fleet ("pronte all'impiego") it's easy think that both Littorio and Vittorio Veneto was in this number (like the Cesare and Doria)



I think the 4 were:

Conte De Cavour 1911
Giulio Cesare 1911 
Andrea Doria 1913 
Caio Duilio 1913


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## Vincenzo (Oct 28, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> I think the 4 were:
> 
> Conte De Cavour 1911
> Giulio Cesare 1911
> ...



Cavour and Duilio were at work after Taranto night...


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## Freebird (Nov 5, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> But that was after having lost the Royal Oak on 10/39 and Hood on 5/41.



Uh, what's your point here? The RN were at war, so it's hardly surprising that they lost ships Sept 1939 - Nov 1941. 


In fact, if you want to split hairs, the Royal Navy was the ONLY Naval power that didn't lose ANY modern capital ships after Dec 1941 - even the US can't claim that. ( modern - ie built 1930's or later)


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 13, 2009)

Ivan1GFP said:


> Hi VikingBerserker,
> 
> Regarding the Russians never having lost a battleship, I thought they lost the Marat to a bombing attack?
> 
> - Ivan.



Ivan,

I happened to stumble across this while reading the Nov 18th, 1941 issue of "Der Adler", its' the Marat after haven been bombed:


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## Njaco (Dec 15, 2009)

I believe Rudel was given credit for that.


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 16, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I believe Rudel was given credit for that.



So THAT'S the one. I'd always hear he had sank a battleship but never knew which one. THANKS!


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## wheelsup_cavu (Dec 17, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I believe Rudel was given credit for that.





vikingBerserker said:


> So THAT'S the one. I'd always hear he had sank a battleship but never knew which one. THANKS!


Play IL-2 Sturmovik 1946 and it's the Ju-87 single mission "Sink the Marat !"
Video game history lessons. 


Wheels


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## riacrato (Dec 22, 2009)

It can be debated if it really was him scoring the decisive hit I guess.


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## Freebird (Dec 22, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> So THAT'S the one. I'd always hear he had sank a battleship but never knew which one. THANKS!



Which other battleship were you thinking of? 

I think only the Marat the only Allied BB sunk by air in the ETO. 

(other than the Italian "Roma" sunk by air-launched guided bomb, from German Dorniers IIRC.)


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 22, 2009)

freebird said:


> Which other battleship were you thinking of?
> 
> I think only the Marat the only Allied BB sunk by air in the ETO.
> 
> (other than the Italian "Roma" sunk by air-launched guided bomb, from German Dorniers IIRC.)



I had assumed it was either one of the Greek Battleships the Luftwaffe had sunk (Kilkis and Lemnos) or another ship ID'd as a battleship such as a large cruiser or a monitor.


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## parsifal (Dec 22, 2009)

There were no British or US Battleships sunk by airpower after December 41. There were no Brit carriers sunk by airpower after 1941, though they did lose several to Uboats. 

Brits lost the barham to Uboat attack, and the QE and Valiant (???) to sabotage by the Italians though they were refloated and repaired. Warspite was heavily damaged off Salerno by flying bomb, and never fully repaired properly 

Kilkis and Lemnos were predreadnoughts and no longer rated as Battleships at the time they were attacked. They had in fact been demilitarised and largely disarmed. 

Axis Battleships that I can think of being sunk by airpower in Europe include Tirpitz, Gneisenau (first by air laid mines, and then by bombing whilst in port), Scheer, Cavour, with many ships laid up for months due to damage


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 22, 2009)

parsifal said:


> There were no British or US Battleships sunk by airpower after December 41. There were no Brit carriers sunk by airpower after 1941, though they did lose several to Uboats



I assume you are only referring to the ETO?




parsifal said:


> Kilkis and Lemnos were predreadnoughts and no longer rated as Battleships at the time they were attacked. They had in fact been demilitarised and largely disarmed.



Actually Lemnos was the only one disarmed and demilitarized and was being used as an accommodation ship. The Kilkis was placed into reserve in 32 and retained her guns. She was still rated as a Battleship according to _Conway's_. However, they both have been traditionally referred to as battleships (be it right or wrong) in the same way the USS Utah at Pearl Harbor was.


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## parsifal (Dec 22, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> I assume you are only referring to the ETO?QUOTE]
> 
> As far as I know it could be applied to the pacific as well. i cannot think of a single Allied battleship, British or US that was lost to airpower after 1941. Apart from the Hermes (I call it the herpes), I cannot think of any Brit carriers lost either in the Pacific.


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## vikingBerserker (Dec 22, 2009)

"Herpes" nice

Yea, but she was sunk in 42 by dive bombers. However, I believe she was the last British carrier sunk by air power.


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## timshatz (Dec 23, 2009)

So the general summation is the Bismark is the ship that is the best of the BBs in 1941. Is there any consensus on why she is better than the North Carolina (which was my pick)?


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## renrich (Dec 23, 2009)

I agree that North Carolina would have been more powerful. Is the question about whether she was in commission in 1941?


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## delcyros (Dec 23, 2009)

I voted for LITTORIO but perhaps I may explain why NORTH CAROLINA is not a likely candidate in 1941.

At first You will notice that NORTH CAROLINA was a brand new ship (as was BISMARCK) and suffered from problems in her skeg and initial propeller design. She was prone to very heavy vibrations near her top speed of 27 kts which reduced her operational speed to under 26 kts or her sensible FC equipment was rendered useless. This means that she is a lot slower than other ships in the comparison. A modified propeller was not installed before 1942.
The details of her protection are not particularely great (altough not poor either). Her side protection system is made from inferior grade materials (US class A face hardened armour is not much better than japanese Vickers cementated, and according to Nathan Okun substantially weaker than Krupp KCn/a, british CA or Terni CA. The 15 degrees inclined 12 in main belt offers effectively no more protection than to those offered by the british HOOD and rates among the worst side protection system of all in comparison. Her deck protection systems is one of the better ones, however. Also her exposed vitals are at best protected average taken into account that 16in barbettes US class A are not any better than 14.2in Krupp KC barbettes with regard to stopping power.
Her AAA of the early 1941 period is worser than average with regard to layout, mk44 firecontroll and performances like ceiling and effective range. Her light AA outfit consisted of four jam prone 28mm quad mounts and ten .50cal twin Browning guns and looks paltry in comparison with some european BB´s of this time. The mk44 consisted spotting glasses but in no means a device to compute lead angles necessary for an efficient AAA battery- Remember, in this timeframe we also don´t have any VT-fuzes for 5in guns, those fuzes, 40mm Bofors batteries and the Mk51computing FC turned the system from a mediocre one into a great one!
While the 5in guns are acceptable AAA guns, they are in the meantime among the worst batteries for anti surface engagements with a comparably short range, long time of flight figures, soft capped common projectiles with significantly less punch than the 6in guns carried by other ships in this role. The 5in/38 biggest asset is the high volume of fire.
There is nothing wrong on her main guns Altough she did not carried a gunlaying Radar in May 1941! All she had was FA (not installed in May1941), which was a very crude gunnery radar. The operator was required to swing the antenna back and forth manually while watching the oscilloscope, during which time he estimated the range. The radar performed satisfactorily when operating at peak performance, but this performance was difficult to maintain because of the relatively short life (about 75 hours) of the oscillator tubes. Detection range for large ships at ideal conditions was 14mls. It was not particularely exact in range and bearing discrimination and the fall of shots couldn´t be judged on display.
Also the operator had to call his ranges down into the FC-room where his information were feed into a computer by another operator. Her original radarset was more thought of as an support for the optical RF equipment. 

By may 1941, NORTH CAROLINA still had a way to go until full fighting efficiency was achieved by all those minor and major modifications to take effect.


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## timshatz (Dec 23, 2009)

Thanks for the post Delc. It was what I was looking for. Gives the Bismark, by virtue of her track record against the POW and Hood, the benefit in this situation. Bismark's gunnery was very impressive in the Battle of the Denmark Straights while the Hood's was pretty poor. 

Ok, I get it now with regards to the Bismark.


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## Vincenzo (Dec 23, 2009)

So neither North Carolina and Richelieu were ready for a may '41 duel... (so around 25% of people voted for invalid one)
There are some reason why the King George V isn't challenge? (i'm sorry if already repy to this question)


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## delcyros (Dec 23, 2009)

I am convinced that KGV is in the challange for the title as of may 1941. It´s a well laid out design.


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## Vincenzo (Dec 23, 2009)

delcyros said:


> I am convinced that KGV is in the challange for the title as of may 1941. It´s a well laid out design.



Agree but is not in the poll


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## parsifal (Dec 23, 2009)

In a one on one duel, I still think the Bismarck would overpower even a fully worked up KGV. But such a meeting would be highly luck dependant


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## Juha (Dec 24, 2009)

IMHO also is that Bismarck was the best but one must remember that Germans cheated and Bismarck was some 6.000 tons heavier than Allied treaty BBs. Speaking on standard displacement. And that is appr 1/6 of total displacement of treaty BB, one could use that extra for all kinds of useful additions. In fact displacement wise nearest equivalent for Bismarck/Tirpitz were the Iowas.

Juha


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## delcyros (Dec 24, 2009)

I am convinced that this is a misconception, altough large, te BISMARCK class is not 6000t heavier in standart displacement than it´s nearest allied or axis counterpart. The nearest aequivalent of BISMARCK (41.673 ts standart) wrt tonnage is the italian LITTORIO (41.380 ts standart) and the french RICHELIEU. We don´t know her actual standart displacement (only the officila figure) but judging from a full load of 47.550 ts and allowing a substraction for the fuel load of ca. 8000ts we again experience a figure of 40.000ts standart. the KING GEORGE V class came out lightest with 36.900 ts standart in 1940 but this figure was eased to 39.000 ts standart for the whole class in 1941. It is amazing how close the key combat parameters of the french, italian and german 41.000 ts standart class bb´s were.
So the difference is not exactly 1/6 of the tonnage, it´s probably closer to 4.500ts to KGV, 1000ts to RICHELIEU and 300 ts to LITTORIO. IOWA turned out to weight 48.782ts standart, altough this was later increased due to wartime modifications to an unknown number (likely around 50.000ts). In it´s original condition, IOWA is more than 7.000ts larger than BISMARCK in standart weight.


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## Juha (Dec 24, 2009)

Hello Delcyros
Yes You are right, I should have checked first, KGV standard displ. was in 1940 36.727tons (Raven and Roberts) or 38.031tons (Garzke and Dulin)
Washington in 1941 38.005 tons (Dulin and Garzke)
So Bismarck was appr 3500tons heavier ie 10%.

Merry Christmas to all!
Juha.


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## dunmunro1 (Jan 1, 2010)

USS North Carolina commissioned on April 09 1941, but here is a shot of her in on 23rd April 1941:

http://www.battleshipnc.com/history/bb55/napics/images/RG181NCB_002.jpg

USS Washington commissioned on May 15 1941, and here is a shot of her on May 29 1941:

http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/015644.jpg

Note the lack of Main Armament FC Directors!

The poll unfortunately, does not list the two ships that were the most powerful in the world, IMHO, in May 1941, namely HMS KGV and Prince of Wales. On paper PoW was more powerful because she had a better set of FC radars, but she was handicapped by not being fully worked up. KGV was fully worked up and her speed, modern FC suite, powerful guns and thick armour made her a match for any battleship afloat. Only Bismarck could have tacked her successfully, IMHO, but I think that KGV's FC would give her the edge.

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## Vincenzo (Jan 1, 2010)

After the commission the BB go to train so neither the North Carolina were ready for fight.


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## vinnye (Jan 2, 2010)

I went for the Rodney / Nelson class because - as stated by several other s - they had good armour and were able to engage from the head on position with her full firepower.A a lot of other Battleships at the time needed to show most of their length to do so - presenting a larger target.

If I remember the Priz Eugen was incorrectly identified as the Bismark - and consequently HMS HOOD engaged the wrong target!
I believe she straddled her quite quickly - before engaging Bismark - but too late!
Prince of Wales was no where near ready for the fight and it showed - but needs must and she did acquit herself well considering!
The tactics used by HMS Hood have been questioned previously - she was crossing the T. That was a decision made to try to protect the Hood from plunging fire at long range onto her known to be weak deck armour. So it was not a mistake in my book - just good gunnery by Bismark - and a little good / bad luck depending on your view point!

An early post also pointed out that Bismark had her forward fire control knocked out early on in her fight wilth KGV and Rodney. I believe this was from one of the RN cruiser and it was an 8 inch shell that did this. In which case you have to say that it was good gunnery (and fire control) that achieved this success and Bismark's bad luck - just as she had had good luck in the Hood encounter.
Rodney would have been straddled early on if she had not began shell chasing manouevres! Well what was she supposed to do - stop engines and let Bismark have a free shot? That was common practice since before Jutland?

Just checked and found a piece that confirms the the RN was quite good at firecontrol HMS Warspite scored hits at very long range in the Med. 
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/history/ships/hms-warspite-1915/
Warspite will be best remembered for her service with the Mediterranean Fleet as flagship of Admiral Andrew Cunningham . At the Battle of Calabria on 9 July 1940 she hit the Italian flagship, Guilio Cesare, at the amazing range of 21 kilometres. Accompanied by sister ships Barham and Valiant at the Battle of Cape Matapan on 28 March 1941, they sank two Italian heavy cruisers in a notable night time engagement.

Not too shabby for some old Battlewaggons that saw service in WW1 never mind WW2. The guns were the 15 inch type - and were preferred by many over both the later 16 inch (Rodney / Nelson) and 14 inch (KGV).


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## Night Fighter Nut (Jan 3, 2010)

It's too bad Yamato didn't qualify... She was launched on 8 August 1940 and commissioned on 16 December 1941 according to the official yamato battleship website.


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## psteel (Mar 20, 2010)

I was reading Garzke and Dulins "Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II" and "Allied battle ships in World War II".

I read about the German armor layouts compared to the "all or nothing" armor schemes of the rest and seriously wonder why the German armor schemes get such a bad rep? The German armor schemes consistantly feature "spaced armor" arrangements, that in the right conditions can offer nearly twice as much protection as the LOS thickness suggests. This even applies to the deck armor if you anaylsis the projectile trajectories and expected deflection angles etc. Is it because of the usual bias against Germans in the 'anglo-america' internet world?


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## delcyros (Apr 1, 2010)

Dr. Geogre Elder wrote these lines, which may be related to Your question:



> I find this notion that the Bismarck was an “antiquated design” rather parochial and simplistic. As near as I can tell, this is one of Tony Preston’s ideational children… which goes hand-and-hand with his strange belief that the Germans did no real testing or R &D to speak of in matters pertaining to naval armor, gunnery, etc., between the wars. Well, this view is incorrect, and even a cursory review of the history of the times will show this to be the fact. I will address what follows in generalities, and invite interested parties to pick up on the clues and sources and see where they lead.
> The Germans began cheating on the treaty of Versailles relatively early on, which is no surprise considering the dearth of active enforcement that was in place after the mid-1920s period when the IACC was being dissolved. Indeed, even before the monitors were sent home, they reported many suspected breaches of both the letter and intent of the treaty agreements by concerns such as Krupps. Of course, no one pressed the issue, and so we find continuing “special projects” being funded in German budgets – often being buried in departments which bore little semblance to anything military (see Paloczi-Horvath, 1998, for a general overview). It seems the socialist in the German government did more to expose these clandestine practices than anything done by the Allied powers. In fact, by 1930 the Reichstag became the center of a heated debate when it was noted that money was being diverted to these special projects, which was something that almost killed the panzerschiffe projects (several good reviews of naval policies in the W. era are available on this).
> Well, the US was certainly aware that the Germans were still doing good R&D in armor, and thus the USN purchased some rather modestly thick plates in the early 1930s to figure out if examining the products could help improve quality control and related issues in US armor manufacture. It was also during this time frame that we find the Germans developing Wh, and other armor products – which had considerably different characteristics than did their WWI counterparts. We also see work in radar, high-pressure steam plants, infrared technology, shaped-charge weapons, and a host of other areas. These developments are just a few of the many things that confuse me about this silly claim the Germans were merely sitting on their hands between the wars.
> But not only were they developing new materials, they were also experimenting with novel ways of laying out this armor to best meet a given need. Any review of the Panzerschiffe designs makes this abundantly clear, but one also sees this in documents such as ADM281/951. This text reviews the development of German APC shells, but also notes some of the many experiments that were done – such as the examination of using spaced array armor aboard warships. It is also in these documents that we get a glimpse of why the new armor’s were developed, with the manipulation of shell yaw being but one example of a very intensive research program. For example, it was found that a very hard and fine-grained armor can enhance initial shell yaw effects, which makes the subsequent penetration of the shell through a subsequent plate problematic.
> ...


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## psteel (Apr 15, 2010)

I'm glad to see that Dr Elder is still hard at it. I remember helping scan some material he sent me years ago.

At the risk of being "shot, drawn and quartered", I will put down my theory/understanding as to how this works.

Spaced armors effectiveness in defeating AP shells is controlled by the T/D ratio of the outer spaced plate to the attacking projectile. A Norwegian study a few years ago showed quite clearly that Hard Steel AP shot will lose the sharpness in their point progressively even after penetrating a very thin plate.

Since the primary vehicle for achieving deep penetration into armor is from this point , that can have an serious impact. However a more serious side effect from perforating a spaced plate, is the yaw imparted to this projectile upon exiting the rear of the plate.

All projectiles attempt to 'rotate' to the normal after exiting the rear face of a plate, which in anything other than a perfect perpendicular impact is going to induce yaw. Give enough gap between spaced plates, this yaw will translate into a tumbling projectile, which results in an impact on the follow on plate in anything other than ideal. 

Not only could the projectile strike the plate sideways, but the lateral forced acting on this projectile can and will shatter it under the right conditions.Some times the degree of yaw does not even have to be great to have significant impact. In Capped projectiles the smallest of yaw can disconnect or weaken the connection of this cap , greatly reducing its ability to perforate follow on plates.

In the case of the Bismarck’s side belt armor , the 320mm face hardened plate can yaw 14-16" projectiles sufficiently to increase the over all effectiveness of a spaced plate arrangement by 45-50%. In the Bismarck case the outer 320mm belt is followed by an inner 30mm longitudinal armored splinter bulk head above the main deck, and a 45mm armored torpedo bulk head below the main armor deck which is connected to this main side belt armor by the outboard sloping armor [~ 4" @ 22°]. 

If either of these cases apply, the expected resistance is going to be on the order of 20". However most such projectile plate interactions are going to include a 'Decent' angle of the attacking projectile at range. This is any where from 5-20° over most engagement ranges, however it can also be effected by shell deflection from penetrating the outer main belt armor. If the resultant shell trajectory has to cross the slopes or the main deck armor to reach the vitals , then the relative resistance is going to have to include this deck/slope armor, at a very severe angle of impact. 

However calculating the impact of that component is difficult to say the lest, since the deck armors are mostly always homogenous plate which has less ballistic resistance compared to Face hardened armors, and the effectiveness of projectiles slanted plates is most often more than the simple 'COS of the plate angle' calculation.

Even if an attacking 14-16" shell initially penetrates the upper 145mm belt armor and plunges through the longitudinal armored bulk head , striking the main deck armor , the effective resistance could exceed 29-30". Which may in part explain why repeated Shell impacts from the KGV and Rodney, still had difficulty penetrating into the Bismarck’s vitals even at striking ranges of 2-6km, where the expected perforation of these guns was 30" or more. 

Looking at the Bismarck through western eyes [always a risky venture], the Bismarck’s armor arrangement can be criticized for placing far too much emphasis on protecting the vitals of 'engine and magazine' to ensure the ship was relatively unsinkable....and place a lower level of protection on the combat elements of the main battery and Command tower and directors. Since it appears German naval doctrine emphasized aggressive fighting , protecting the combat element would seem to be just as important. If you adjust the armor mass applied to the belt CT and main battery so the outer belt is only 145mm thick a hugh amount of armor mass can be applied to these other areas [~ 2000tons] . To do such a mass transfer to 'normalize' the main battery and CT to the side 'belt' protection, then the relative resistance should be on the order of 22-24", for the belt, the main battery and command tower.


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## timshatz (Apr 15, 2010)

Psteel. Great post. Even if there are problems with it, the paragraph about the KGV and Rodney shells being defeated is enlightening.


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## Juha (Apr 15, 2010)

Hello Psteel
to me it is difficult to see how a 14-16” shell fired from somewhere what can be descript as short distance could after penetrating 145mm upper belt of Bismarck hit the its main armour deck if the ship had not a heavy list. After all at short distance the trajectories of main armaments of WWII capital ships were rather flat. IMHO any short distance hit that hit the main armoured deck of Bismarck had to first go through 300-320mm (depending on source) main belt.

There was the limit to which to type of Bismarck’s armour could be thinned. That was shown when Dunkerque was hit by 15” shells from Hood from appr. 14km distance. Dunkerque was only armoured against German 11” shells, was that from 16,5 km. One 15” shell went through the 225mm inclined belt, equivalent at least 283mm vertical, 2 bulkheads, the 50mm to 54 degree sloped down part (as in Bismarck, but in it 100mm or 110mm thick, depending on the source) of lower armoured deck, through upper part of fuel oil tank, through 30mm torpedo bulkhead and through some machinery before ending to a turbine casting.

Juha


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## Kurfürst (Apr 15, 2010)

psteel said:


> Looking at the Bismarck through western eyes [always a risky venture], the Bismarck’s armor arrangement can be criticized for placing far too much emphasis on protecting the vitals of 'engine and magazine' to ensure the ship was relatively unsinkable....



Emphasis on protecting the SHIP as a whole was an old Tirpitzian maxim (damaged ships are easier to repair than building new ships in place of sunken ones, so I don't care if all the guns point down while the ship is still afloat). This worked rather well for them in World War I (see even the BC Lutzow at Skagerrak - eventually it sunk, but so slowly that the crew could be saved by escorts, and all the others survived) and made sense from the German Navy's operational enviroment: in all likelyhood they would operate relatively close to their bases, so damaged ships could limp back the harbour and fight another day.



> and place a lower level of protection on the combat elements of the main battery and Command tower and directors. Since it appears German naval doctrine emphasized aggressive fighting , protecting the combat element would seem to be just as important.



I don't think it was the case - the protection offered for the main battery turrets, CT and directors were pretty average compared to contemporaries - worser than some, better than others. Its just that there is a stark contrast between the massive protection offered for the hull compared to the pretty average protection offered for the offensive tools.

There was a limit of what could be done at 42 000 tons, but there is one crucial difference, there was lot of built-in redundancy built in the system: four main battery turrets had to be knocked out instead of the usual three, and there were three fire control directors instead of the usual two. 

This appears to have been attractive to German designers, who made this step in full awareness from the 3x3 setup of the Scharnhorst, and favored it over the other extreme end favored by the archival French navy. I can certainly see why - it is not neccessary to completely defeat the armor of turrets, CTs and fire directors to put them out of action, if the turret jams, looses hydraulics, or if optics are wrecked...

Another interesting feature of the Bismarcks was their increased 145 mm upper side belt - quite a few wrote down this feature as obsolate and a remnant of WW1, but here again the Germans did this step from the Scharnhorst which had only 50mm as opposed to their WW1 vessels! 

The upper side belt had many functions in the protection scheme, but I find it easy to justify it, since apart from all the pluses, it allowed decreasing barbette thickness by 120 mm between the top and main armored deck, a weight saving that alone equaled the weight of the increase in thickness of the USB, not to mention that below the deck the barbettes were now actually offering better protection - it was near impossible for any (decapped) shell to penetrate them until extreme low ranges when going through even the thinner 145mm upper belt, as opposed to the Scharnhorst's full-thickeness barbettes/low-thickness USH. 

The other pluses - immunity of the entire citadel to all but the largest naval battleship sized guns guns, decapping/yaw effects was an extra. Its a great example of how armor re-distribution alone can improve overall protection.


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## psteel (Apr 15, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Psteel
> to me it is difficult to see how a 14-16” shell fired from somewhere what can be descript as short distance could after penetrating 145mm upper belt of Bismarck hit the its main armour deck if the ship had not a heavy list. After all at short distance the trajectories of main armaments of WWII capital ships were rather flat. IMHO any short distance hit that hit the main armoured deck of Bismarck had to first go through 300-320mm (depending on source) main belt.
> 
> There was the limit to which to type of Bismarck’s armour could be thinned. That was shown when Dunkerque was hit by 15” shells from Hood from appr. 14km distance. Dunkerque was only armoured against German 11” shells, was that from 16,5 km. One 15” shell went through the 225mm inclined belt, equivalent at least 283mm vertical, 2 bulkheads, the 50mm to 54 degree sloped down part (as in Bismarck, but in it 100mm or 110mm thick, depending on the source) of lower armoured deck, through upper part of fuel oil tank, through 30mm torpedo bulkhead and through some machinery before ending to a turbine casting.
> ...



Hi Juha, 
From reading "Allied Battleships in World War II", I'm think you might be confusing shots and hits. There were 4 x 15" shell hits on the Dunkerque. One hit the aircraft hanger area which had little or no armor. Another appeared to ricochet off the second quadruple 13" gun turret. Part of the shell landed in the town 2km away while the rest deflected down into the hull. The third shell struck the main deck armor right at the joint with the main belt armor, so it penetrated the deck not the main belt. 


How a 15" shell at 17,500 yards range was supposed to penetrate 4.4" RHA at 14-17° descent angle, when the listed deck penetration for these guns,by most accounts is only ~3".....has yet to be adequately explained. The difference between Face hardened and RHA armor can as much as 30% depending how much the shell ballistic cap survived . It could be that French homogenous armor used was ‘sub par’, as a similar thing happened to the Jean Bart? Further all ballistic figures quoted are a calculation or at best an average of a number of hit results. To that end, there is a considerable error bar implied in all such results. I read as much as +/- 20% for these types of shells . 

The last shell penetrated underwater below the main belt and hit the void/absorbent material, before piercing the torpedo bulk head and entering the engine area.

You should know the Dunkerque lower deck was STS steel not strictly armored steel , in fact not that much better than German STS 52 steel which is standard for most non armored warships of that period. Additionally the slopes on the Dunkerque, were near vertical, like those on the HMS Hood. So at longer range, any impact would be almost perpendicular. This is nothing like the Bismarck or Scharnhorst slope armor which was ~4” RHA at 22-25° below the vertical.


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## Juha (Apr 15, 2010)

Hello Psteel
I recommended, that you reread the page 61 in "Allied Battleships in World War II” and especially the Table 2-7. The STS was backing of the main (upper) armoured deck.

For 15” hits info and trajectories, please refer the new monograph on French battleships by Jordan and Dumas, my info is from it. It’s newer and specialized to French BBs so odds are that it is more reliable on this. According to it both 3rd and 4th hits penetrated the belt.

Juha


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## psteel (Apr 15, 2010)

Kurfürst I agree with most of what you say. The logic behind the 145mm upper belt armor is not sound if you believe in the "all or nothing protection" as the allies did. But German surface raiders were built to a different standard and doctrine. They were not designed primarily to fight allied battleships, that’s a fools errand. They were designed to attack and break up enemy convoys, so the U-Boat pacts could pick off the merchant ships with ease. Given that role covering as much of the ship as possible with protection levels against allied cruisers and destroyers was more valuable than being able to counter the latest allied battleship gun.

Historically the Bismarck and Scharnhorst classes would never have been built had they been allowed to followed their doctrine to conclusion, since Panzerschiff were far more usable than battleships or heavy cruisers like the Hipper. In fact the KM strategy envisaged a dozen Panzerschiff built. But Hitler was not interested in naval matters. He deferred and spurned all Admiral Raeders efforts to build up an anti RN fleet, arguing there was not going to be any war with the UK until late in the following decade, so Germany still had plenty of time to build a fleet.

Raeder to his credit was able to nudge Hitler’s decrees slightly by arguing the German fleet was in fact designed to counter the French fleet, to which Hitler agreed. So German warships were to be built in numbers to match 1/2 of the French fleet and warship types mimicked French designs. So German Torpedoboot morphed into super fast TB to counter French designs, while destroyers morphed into counters to French high speed 'super destroyers' and the Panzerschiff design morphed into battleships to counter French Dunkerque etc. However all this also created confusion in the warship designs with problematic consequences...like super fast Torpedoboot Destroyers with poor reliability ,endurance and range.


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## psteel (Apr 15, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Psteel
> I recommended, that you reread the page 61 in "Allied Battleships in World War II” and especially the Table 2-7. The STS was backing of the main (upper) armoured deck.
> 
> For 15” hits info and trajectories, please refer the new monograph on French battleships by Jordan and Dumas, my info is from it. It’s newer and specialized to French BBs so odds are that it is more reliable on this. According to it both 3rd and 4th hits penetrated the belt.
> ...



Hi Juha, since the main armored deck joined at the top of the main belt, any shell can only penetrate one or the other, not both.

yes I have read pp 61, but what a ship is designed to do and achieve and what it does in actuality are completely different.


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## Juha (Apr 15, 2010)

Hello Psteel
Quote:"Hi Juha, since the main armored deck joined at the top of the main belt, any shell can only penetrate one or the other, not both."

And who had claimed that a shell penetrated both the belt and the main armoured deck???

Juha


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## psteel (Apr 15, 2010)

Juha said:


> Hello Psteel
> Quote:"Hi Juha, since the main armored deck joined at the top of the main belt, any shell can only penetrate one or the other, not both."
> 
> And who had claimed that a shell penetrated both the belt and the main armoured deck???
> ...





OK thanks Juha, that clears things up, because the other sources claim it went through the main deck armor. If it went through the 228mm plate and the sloped plate [40mm @ 58°] and then the 30mm torpedo bulk head , this makes sense. However, the trajectory can't also go through the two thin longitudinal bulkheads, since they are between the main and lower decks, which are above these slopes.

OK so 228mm @ 11.5° + 40mm @ 58°[V] + 30mm . At 17,500 yards the 15" shell should have a descent angle of 16-17° which combined with the inclined belt is ~ 28° . The 'slopes' become 75° [V]. So the net resistance should be roughly 330mm x 1.37= 451mm or about 17.8". At that range the British 15" gun perforates about 17-19" against British/American/German belt armor plating. So the Hood can just manage that penetration.


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## Juha (Apr 16, 2010)

Hello Psteel
I don't have the Jordan Dumas at hand but if you look the p. 72 in "Allied Battleships in World War II", you see at least one bulkhead inclined as a belt between belt and the slope of lower armoured deck, the slope being in fact 50mm thich , horizontal part of the lower armoured deck being 40mm (like Bismarck's 110mm slope and 80mm horizontal in the main armoured deck, if we forget that the belt was inclined and the slope deeper in Dunkerque, systems are not so far away but in Dunkerque the heavier armour deck was the upper one, in Bismarck other way around). The shell also went through the upper part of fuel oil tank, so machinery spaces got also some fuel bath, and through a main steam line, which was fatal to the personel nearby. 

Yes, those 15" shells didn't do miragles, simply functioned as they should. That not be always a case.

Juha


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## psteel (Apr 17, 2010)

I read that the 20mm vertical bulk heads are specially treated STS steel , which is why they might not be considered armored. But any trajectory passing through the main belt and the slopes can't go through these bulkheads , since they are above the slope deck level. The 30mm torpedo bulk should be included though in such a trajectory.

This is not really in the same league as the Bismarck since the Bismarck slopes are 22° below the horizontal and they are 110mm thick. That makes the LOS value roughly 178mm plus 45mm torpedo bulkhead plus the 320mm main belt. Combined that’s roughly 540mm LOS, which would also be increased by the spaced armor effects. Since this is in effect a three plate spaced array the T/d of both the outer plates must be included [Belt and slopes] . Against a 16" shell that should be roughly 1.45 x 1.2 or 37" needed to get through to the engine area. If the outer main belt was only 145mm, that would still be 368mm x 1.26 x 1.2 = 22".

Penetration above the slopes , would have to pass through the 30mm bulkheads and the deck @ 80mm @ 17° below the horizontal or 303mm + main belt. If this is, say 145mm main belt, the T/d is still 1.26 x 1.03 and the combined resistance should be in the region of 22-23", but most shells that get through the outer belt should still ricochet off the main deck away from the vitals anyway.

Now a penetration of the upper belt, at flat trajectory through to the uptakes , should require > 9" penetration against a 6-8" shell.


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## Juha (Apr 17, 2010)

Hello Psteel
what the shell penetrated was a different bulkhead, if you look carefully the plan on page 72, you will notice it, its marked to have only 6-7mm thickness.

And of course it is different thing with Bismarck, as I wrote the protection of Dunkerque was designed only against German 11” shells from 16,5 km, that of Bismarck against much heavier shells. Also the design philosophies were different. French was a kind half-way house between German and British thinking, but it is interesting how much it looked, only looked, like the German one.

Juha


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## davidow (Jan 1, 2014)

If you were to be recruited as a rating or commissioned as an officer aboard H.M.S. Rodney 
(10 November 1927- Scrapped 26 March 1948) you would probably have survived to tell the tale. 
Or you could have suffered the misfortune to be posted to the Bismarck (24 August 1940 - Sunk 27 May 1941)
I know which ship I'd have rather have been on.


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