Naval History Forums

Thanks for your reply Bill.
You are of course quite right in saying that the US were more interested in building aircraft carriers, but I can't help thinking that a 'Montana' would have been a spectacular sight had they been built!

Consider too the design of the South Dakota class ships. The NC had been originally designed around a 14” gun and when up-gunned to 16” was considered unbalanced. The South Dakota class was intended to be a balanced 35,000 ton treaty battleship with the 16”45 2240lb combination. But when BuOrd devel...

Hi Francis, I've often wondered about hat too, i would think that a modern 'Exocet' type missile on a cruiser like the 'Belgrano' would be pretty devastating even though she would have had thicker armour than HMS Sheffield for instance who seemed to have a lot of flammable material on her. No doubt ...

Gentlemen, Have been 'out of action' for a few days whilst tackling my new knee. I read all the posts with interest and several things occurred to me, first of all, the in ability of Bismarck to hit the destroyers at 4000yds, I would have thought that at night, with a ship rolling around at about 10...

Gentlemen, I trust this last post is not going to lead us back to the topic of whether Capt Leach should have been Court Martialed after Denmark Strait! Personally I think that if either Lutjens or Lindermann were still alive they could have realised that they were in an impossible situation and sur...

Off topic commentary deleted. WJJ

Gentlemen, Your opinions please. Was president Trump correct in pulling out US troops from Syria and letting the Turks, Kurds and Syrians get on with it, even though it let the Russian in? Also, I believe Turkey has one of the largest armies in the Continent, so if the Russians ares involved could i...

Thanks very much for that Wadinga, the article was very interesting, particularly about the recoil One statement says, "We had an anti-tank rifle which temporarily incapacitated the firer after every round" Another said, " In an anti-tank rifle report on the 'Boys' it acquired the unsubstantiated na...

Gentlemen, Does anyone know anything about the Boys Anti-Tank rifle? I believe it was of .55 calibre and packed a mighty kick to those firing it, but what sort of tank would it be used against, as I cannot believe it would do much more than scratch the paintwork of a Panzer or Tiger and how would it...

Gentlemen, We could also add to the list the US aircraft that bombed a U Boat even though it had a large red cross on its deck and was towing a number of Laconia's lifeboats, As Wadinga said, in wartime the RN also to leave survivors of sunken ships for fear of being torpedoed, so except in certain ...

Gentlemen, My thanks to both Bill and Alberto for their comments on my last post, I do appreciate that they have taken the time to read and reply to them. I'm afraid that I am at a bit of a loss what to say next, I have in the past tried on several occasions to tone down the content of some of the p...

Gentlemen, This subject has gone way 'off topic', it was supposed to be about Bismarck's options after the torpedo hit on her rudder. I don't wish to be rude to Alberto, or any of our fellow contributors, but it seems to me that this argument (and I use this word in place of 'debate') is not likely ...

Gentlemen,
It seems like gross negligence by the Captain to me.
If the destroyers had picked up Conqueror at 1400 yards it seems that at only 22 knots they couldn't have caught her anyway, I wonder if, at 1400 yds distance Conqueror would have already fired her torpedoes and made off anyway?

Gentlemen, Just picked up on this thread while idly browsing through the forum. At the beginning some posts mention the New Mexico class ships that have 12x14" 50 guns and the possibility of it shooting holes in Tirpitz if she dared to come over the US shores. Elsewhere in the Forum there are numero...

Gentlemen, Would it be fair to say that the Bismarck survivor had just undergone what must have been a terrifying experience of a ship being pounded to bits by shells and had just abandoned the ship into rough seas contaminated by heavy fuel oil and therefore was probably not in a position to make a...