Battle of the Denmark Straights, what if..

[parsifal]

Hello Parsifal,

I can't disagree with most of what you wrote. I just interpret things a little differently.
Even if the Hood and Dirt Flinger were both designed at the same time, they obviously were designed to different parameters.
One was an average sized ship of the type with typical armament for the period. The other was 50% larger than the biggest ship then afloat. One made it into service and the other for whatever reason, design modifications, lessons learned, etc. was on a rather long building program and never made it into the war. Hood was the biggest warship afloat when she was completed and remained so for quite some time.

I believe that even if the technologies were the same, the sheer size difference meant that the two ships were not comparable.
To me this is very much like a comparison between the Iowa class Battleship and the Alaska class Battlecruiser. Technology may be pretty similar, but size makes a serious difference in capabilities.

- Ivan.

They were two different ships, built to different specifications, for sure, but they had the same basic role. They were scouting ships with capital ship armament, designed to run down enemy battleships and survive long enough to hold that enemy battle line in place. in 1913-1920 there were no treaty limits, Germany and Britain were building the best ships they could with the technology and resources available.

Whilst there were only a handful of yards that could handle a ship the size of the hood, I believe the germans had access to such ports. moreover the germans were aware British were designing and building the hood class, just as the british knew basically what the germans were building. This is what makes the Imperial fleets decisions about their new ships perplexing. They made similar mistakes 20 years later with their bismarck classes and even moreso in the way they went about designing and building carriers.

The alaskas were never considered ships for the gunline. they were the natural progression of US cruiser design, freed of all trety restrictions. Though they shared some similarity to the Battlecruiser concept they not that. Strangekly however their armouring was similar thickness to the hood, but the main battery much lighter. armour distribution was more modern than on the hood, with up to 4in over vitals in deck armour. Concistent with modern armouring, the Alaskas used the "all or nothing" system of armour distribution.

Just to show what a mistake the Alaskas were they were nearly as expensinsive as an iowa to build. The 12in guns were a new design and because only a few were made, they were very expensive to build....the most expensive guns in the US inventory....

 

[Ivan1GFP]

It's amazing what autocorrect can do.

Sorry, that was intentional. That is what the British called her.
Attached is a document with a lot more detail on Hood and Bismarck and some chronology.
I actually have not gone through he entire document.
;-(

- Ivan.

 

[Ivan1GFP]

They were two different ships, built to different specifications, for sure, but they had the same basic role. They were scouting ships with capital ship armament, designed to run down enemy battleships and survive long enough to hold that enemy battle line in place. in 1913-1920 there were no treaty limits, Germany and Britain were building the best ships they could with the technology and resources available.

This is an interesting argument because as you know and as supported by the article I just posted, the design of the Hood changed substantially from its initial concept especially after Jutland. Its initial design is not what actually commissioned, but more on that later.
As for knowing what the other side was up to, keep in mind that the Germans did not see the British as their natural enemy.

The Derfflinger was designed well before the war. It commissioned in 1914 a month after the war began.
As for knowing that the British were working on the Admiral class, that would be pretty hard considering that according to this article, the request for investigating the design that became the Hood did not even happen until 1915.

You also must know that the resources available to the Germans was not nearly equal to those available to the British.

Whilst there were only a handful of yards that could handle a ship the size of the hood, I believe the germans had access to such ports. moreover the germans were aware British were designing and building the hood class, just as the british knew basically what the germans were building. This is what makes the Imperial fleets decisions about their new ships perplexing. They made similar mistakes 20 years later with their bismarck classes and even moreso in the way they went about designing and building carriers.

First of all, the ports and facilities between the two nations was not equal. I believe that waterways (Kiel Canal?) needed to be dredged to allow a ship the size of Bismarck to pass. This was decades after the Great War, so Mackensen / Scharnhorst was probably as big as their infrastructure could support at the time.
Regarding size of Bismarck: With Washington Treaty limits at 35,000 tons, this was a pretty big stretch of the truth. When the limit escalated, obviously they were not going to be replacing her. King George V class had the same issue with being well under the "Treaty Limit" but even more so.
As history shows, the tiny little Nelson, KGV, and Queen Elizabeth classes and the even smaller and older ships were not so much a problem in the end. The big difference in the number of units in each navy was the worst problem for the Germans.

War was not supposed to come quite so early for the Germans. If it had been delayed another 5 years or more, perhaps Bismarck would have had more company. Perhaps Graf Zeppelin would have been finished and given the Germans some experience with aircraft carriers though I don't see how they could have built more very quickly.
In the big scheme of things, a half dozen German battleships would not have made that much difference either

Just to show what a mistake the Alaskas were they were nearly as expensinsive as an iowa to build. The 12in guns were a new design and because only a few were made, they were very expensive to build....the most expensive guns in the US inventory....

Consider that only three ships were built along with a new design for a naval gun, that is not all that surprising.
Suppose that the post-war navy had settled on a ship between the size of Baltimore and Alaska armed with 12 inch guns as a standard platform? Maybe the 12 inch gun would not have been so expensive in quantity.

- Ivan.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The British battlecruisers in WW I suffered from two problems, the often noted thin armor, and the cordite propellent that tended to explode in magazine fires.
The German propellent tended to (but not always) burn a bit slower (helped by a large portion of it being in cartridge cases) which, while burning violently, didn't seem to blow the ships to pieces.

The middle series of British battlecruisers were handicapped by the use of large tube boilers which required more weight and larger boiler rooms (also more weight/larger hull) than small tube boilers of equivalent power. The extra weight had to made up somewhere and unfortunately it was in made up with less armor.

I would also add that the British shells were inferior, tending to break up before penetrating as well as being more susceptible to premature detonation. The British had made the decision to trade armor for a more powerful armament which unfortunately for them was negated by poor shell design . If the British started a crash program after Jutland that dramatically improved the performance of their shells. Jutland II would likely have been a disaster for the Germans.
It is interesting to note that while other navies lost of number of ships due to non combat related magazine explosions SMS Karlsruhe was the only German ship lost in that manner. The German educational system before WWI produced the worlds best chemists and metallurgists and it showed up in battle.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

There were problems galore from the british perspective. You have one BB (the PoW) not worked up properly, with many of the onboard systems not functioning or breaking down during the battle. Unlike KM capital ships, where about 6 months was spent to train the crews and get them to work as an integrated team, the RN had a nasty habit of sending ships into action with crews not fully integrated. The crews were a good mix of old salts and new chumps, but the crews were not worked up to work as a team.


As a consequence, the PoW could not be viewed as a ship ready for combat, much less a ship able to act as flagship in a Task Group. if the PoW had been the designated flagship it is unlikely the TG would even have been capable of getting into the fight, and if it did was not capable of excercising an effective C&C function on a sustained basis. The command system of the TG is not just the admiral, though he is important, it has to be the supporting executive staff as well, and the relative 'newness" of the PoW staff meant this would have been a function they would have struggled with.


The hoods shortcoming stem from the age of the ship. She was revolutionary in 1916 when designed, but she had not been properly modernised since then. She was an experienced and well trained unit, well able to fill the roles of flagship in the TG, but ther levels of protection were so poor in 1941 that she was well out of her depth when ranged against a top shelf opponent like the Bismarck.

 

[Reluctant Poster]

The Germans had the luxury of deciding when the Bismark would sail, therefore they could train to their hearts content. The Royal Navy and a lot more to deal with and was sending ships into action without fully trained crews because they had no other choice. Would you have sent the Hood out alone? Or would you just let Bismark run amuck.

 

[fliger747]

Note the photo above is Vanguard, interesting that GB's last Battleship re used some pretty ancient armament. POW actually made threee hits, the one mentioned for'd causing the fuel loss, one near the funnel aircraft catapult. Very minor damage from that one but it did disable the equipment used to launch the Arado seaplane. This was an issue when a decision was made toward the end to fly the Kriegs Tag Buch off when it was realized the ship was likely doomed. I imagine the pilot was somewhat disappointed... The third hit actually defeated the belt armor and caused flooding in I believe an evap compartment.

Yes it was a lucky hit, much as the bomb that destroyed Arizona hit the black powder magazine for the charges used to launch the aircraft. Takes a lot of holes to sink a ship unless there are items aboard that can be touched off, on a warship the list is endless. It would be interesting to see what the RN fighting instructions were for Hood. Hood had a speed advantage over POW and would typically be in the lead.

POW took a hit on the bridge wounding much of the bridge crew. The actor Esmond Knight was on the bridge and was wounded when this shell hit. He later played Capt Leach in "Sink the Bismarck". Leach probably did the right thing, shadow the Bismarck, backing up Suffolk and Norfolk till the fleet could be brought to bear. Bismarck was doomed if she couldn't shake her shadowers. She did trade a few more shots with Bismarks and made a turn around a fighting proposition that was not Bismarcks optimal choice.