I
am particularely interested in how You quantify the latter. Define range. UK and US long range figures were regularely achieved with caged boilers and the most economic setting while the (continental european) range estimation were done with a higher degree of readiness, resulting in more lit up boilers and a substantial higher fuel consumption at low speeds.
Only few british CL-classes had a notably higher range, altough such cases exist and can be named. The generalization expressed by Yourselfe, however, has to be rejected.
The Cruiser book by Whitney gives excellent breakdowns of ranges with various loads and speeds, however for now I only have acces to Janes and Conways, but these i am sure are adequate for this discussion
French cruisers have the following fuel loads and ranges at economic speed, which is universally accepted as carrying a deep load displacement, and with full fuel, with a surface speed of around 14 knots.
Sampling the french cruisers
Georges Leygues: 9120 full load, 1569 t oil, 7000/6800/5500/1650 nm @ 12/14/18/32 kts
Emile Bertin : 8480 full load 1360 t oil: 3600/1100 nm @ 14/30 kts
Jeanne De Arc: 8950 t full load 1400 t oil, Radius @ 11 kts 5200 nm, att full power 3200 nm (but max sea speed was only 22 kts)l
Duquay Trouin : 9350 t 1500 t oil, 4500/3000/900 @ 15/20/33 kts
Tourville : 12200 t, 1820 t oil, 4500/1900 @ 15/30 kts
Suffren : 12780 t 1800 t oil (plus 600 t coal in two), 5300 (coal ships only)/4600/3200 @ 10/15/20 kts
Algerie : 13900 t 3186 oil, 8700 nm @ 15 kts
Note the additional fuel load of the Algerie, which approaches that carried by the british CAs. Her range is approaching that of the british cruisers, suggesting that the method used by Conways to determine range is a fair one, when comparing the ranges of the brit ships with those of the french
Now for the brits
Kent: 13540 t, 3400 t oil: (Janes, 10400 @ 11-14 kts, estimated at 14 kts to be 9200 nm)
London : 13315 t, 3210 t oil range unknown at this stage, but similar to Kents
Norfolk : 13425 t 3210 t oil, range similar to Kent
York : 10350t 1900 oil, unknown but less than the larger CAs
Exeter : 10490 t, 1900 t oil, range similar to Yorks
Perth : 9150 t, 1840 t oil, 10300/7000/6200 nm @ 10/14/20 kts (
World War 2 Cruisers)
Sheffield : 11350 t , 2070 t, 12100 @ 12 kts (source as above)
Edinburgh :13175 t, 2250 oil, 12000@ 12 kts
I could continue, but its getting late. The point is that the modern 9ie post 1920) RN cruisers all had substantially higher fuel loads than their continental cousins, not just a few, as you suggest
I consider Conways Janes and the WWII cruiser site (
World War 2 Cruisers) to be secondary when compared to Whitneys cruiser book. I should be able to retrive it from my friends place by Thursday. However this authoritative work on cruisers is only going to reinforce my position
The message should be loud and clear, British cruisers built post WWII were built with trade protection as their primary mission, whereas the french cruisers were principally built as auxiliaries to the gunline. French cruisers were more lightly built (often, the exception being the Leygues and the Algerie clases), but all of them were far shorter ranged than their equvalent RN opposite numbers, even allowing for "creative accounting"
As long as You are engaging any unarmoured ship, the difference is negliable (altough even here a true HE projectile would be better than a common type), but against armoured ships, like Graf Spee and most opposition in the North Atlantic theatre You need to pierce armour -not necessarely the belt- to inflict substantial damage. If your projectile is not able to do this, as was the case with 6"CPBC against Graf Spee at their distances, I rate it as a disadvantage.
It´s not that it would be overly difficult to supply a proper HE and APC projectile nor can it be said that Britain was lacking expertise to do so. It´s a questionable decision made by the directors of ordenance which is not followed by non commonwealth nations for reasons.
I dont disagree that the british would have been better served if they had adopted a proper SAP round. however, I do disagree that it was a major factor. The proof of this are in the actions that the RN found itself against germany and Italy. In both cases, there are numerous examples of the RN taking on numerically superior forces, and either defeating them, or at least holding their own. The facts just simply dont support your assertions. Do i need to go further?
Indeed. Here You is Your opportunity to compare them. But to what degree of agreement can we come if You relativate differing shell abilities, differing gun-design and n^2 issues in the first place?
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Im comparing results, not theory. The results speak for themselves.....
Both are guns, at least. The 5.91"L45 of Komoran fired HE base and HE nose fused projectiles only at a muzzle velocity of 2.740 fps.
NÜRNBERGS 5.91"L60 fired HE nose and base fused + true APC at a muzzle velocity of 3.150 fps.
And your point is?????
Bismarcks armour was penetrated in barbettes (2), main belt (2+ 1 burst in holing), CT (4+) and turrets (2) by main armement hits. Please read Bill Jurens article on this. This damage silenced Bismarck, not the superficial damage on the upper works.
One or more shells from this salvo straddled the foreship around turret A. Turret A was knocket out, turret B was temporarely out of action as a result of this hit.
Note that belt penetrations were not necessary here. one or two barbette hits could do the same. But it was necessary to engage heavy armour here.
Bismarck was indeed silenced but not very quickly. Rodney opened 08:47 and D- turret was silenced 09:31, a good 44 minutes later. The statement of Rodneys ammunition expandeture between 09:04 and 09:31 is showing substantial incorrectness.
I was referring to Bismarcks fire, not Rodneys. From 0904 until 0931 BISMARCK fired hardly at all (my accounts conflict, some say two rounds, some day 6, but it was just a few, compared to roughly 100 by Rodney in that same time frame).
Bismarck was substantially silenced by 0904. From 0904 until 0931 she shot off just 6 rounds of her main armament (at maximum, according to the RN report). In that regard she was despatched in record time, just 13 minutes. Her ability to resist from 0904 was extremely slight, and according to Barnett and the RN report was the result of just one hit from a heavy shell (which is at odds with your source, we will both need to dig further to get to the truth of that one)
The critical hits were: 0859 1 - 16 inch, 0900 1 - 16 inch, 0902 1 - 16 inch, 0910 5 - 14 inch and 1 - 16 inch for a total of 5 14 inch and 4 16 inch hits - nine shells in all. In addition there were two critical 8 inch hits in this period, taking out the main RF equipment. Successive hits took out A and B turrets, the primary director, the secondary director, wrecked the CT. C and D turrets were operational until later in the action.
Apart from the disparity in reported hits prior to 0904, this substantially correlates to my sources. I am not going to die in a ditch over whether it took one or two hits to silence the bismarcks heavy guns (substantially) but the point is this, despite all those hits, NOT ONE penetrated the main belt. Perhaps our definition of critical hits is differeent. Whilst i agree that the hits suffered were more than enough to silence the great ship, they were not enough to start the ship sinking, as evidenced by toveys signals Bismarck was NOT defeated by hits that penetrated to her vitals. i know that you know that, but for some reason you wont concede the point. What defeated her were the hits that may have penetrated, but not to areas traditionally identified as "vitals". I am actually giving credit to the main belt armouring scheme of the ship (but remain critical of her overall scheme), so in a way you should be happy. I am having to concede a point you made in some of our earlier discussions....
The ammunition expandeture figures for Rodney and KGV show that their outfit of APC projectiles was depleted in the course of the action.
You are right that little of the damage is relative to belt penetrations (altough as many as 18 impacts on the main belt are recorded) but they are nevertheless penetrations of the exposed vitals under heavy armour which lead to the silencing of the ship, not secondary gun hits or common hits with wrecking effect. A task which would be difficult to perform without proper APC projectiles.
I never said that the secondaries were responsible for silencing the ship, but you are drawing a very long bow in your definition of what is a vital. The hits that caused the silencing of the ship, were of heavy calibre but did not penetrate the main belt. it would be a strange design that places vital areas outside the main belt protection. So i maintain my point that the silencing of the ship was due to hits that did not penetrate the main belt.
There is every reason that the belt-slope combination of Bismarck worked as intended and not only kept her afloat but also successfully protected her embedded vitals (magazines, machinery and ship controll). This is a significant difference to other BB constructions.
I agree the bismarck was exceptionally well protected in these areas. But the scheme was not able to succeed in keeping her armament firing, which was silenced quickly