Naval History Forums

The situation depends upon the type of boiler in use. Fire-tube boilers, which were not used much in warships after about 1905 or so, contain a good deal of superheated water that can flash into steam if the pressure vessel complex is breached. But, in practical terms, this rarely happens because in...

Steve Crandall wrote: "Bill: What percentage chance do you think an Iowa class battleship would have to hit a battleship size target at 30,000 yds? 35,000 yds?" For a battleship-sized target, at 30,000 yards, estimates were 2.7% for Top Spot, 3.5% for Plane Spot, and 3.4% for Radar Spot. There are, ...

I have not been following this thread particularly closely, and it seems to be developing rather rapidly. I am not sure exactly what opinions are wanted here, but if I get the gist of things correctly, I think the question is whether or not accurate gunnery could be achieved at quite large ranges. T...

I'd begin by pointing out that it was not the rudder being jammed at 19 degrees, it was the mechanical rudder INDICATOR which indicated 19 degrees when it ceased operating. Whether that reading could be depended upon remains highly problematical. In any case, you are correct. Steering with engines a...

Thanks, Marcelo: Your comments are valid ones. With three authors (and one contributor) there were bound to be areas where disagreements -- apparent or real -- and other areas where some repetition might occur. As many have noted, these sorts of things should have been caught and corrected in the ed...

So far as I know, all of these articles from Warship International are now on the JSTOR website. You may have to pay to access them. It may still be possible to get copies from the INRO archives. The material appears in three issues, No. 39/3, No. 39/4, and No. 40/1 Here is what I think is a full li...

Your comment about the deck nomenclatures is legitimate. We did have some problems deciding what system to use, and probably because we were more accustomed to writing comparative rather than descriptive issues, and because we tended to use American nomenclature in regular correspondence -- in effec...

Without tooting my own horn, readers may like to refer to the three-part (I think) series of articles on the loss of Arizona that Christopher Wright and I published about 10 or 15 years back in Warship International.

Bill Jurens

The black powder was required because due to it's very small grain size it produced a very large energy input very quickly. It would have been very difficult to evenly ignite all of the much larger nitrocellulose propellant grains otherwise. Actually, although few appreciate this, in many circumstan...

Another very important thing that is being neglected here is the effect of the supporting 'grillage' of beams etc., underneath the deck armor. The deck plating is not just floating in space. It's really impossible (or at least unsafe) to generalize, but in practical terms if one works the geometry f...

It's interesting -- but probably in the final analysis, futile -- to speculate as to what might have occurred if the torpedo that struck Bismarck had exploded in a slightly different place. The detailed effects of explosions, particularly in areas of the hull that vary fairly dramatically from place...

My compliments to the author. I received my copy a few weeks ago. This is a very good treatment. I'd suggest contacting some English-language publishers, who would be willing to tackle a English edition. Anyhow, very nice work indeed. Highly recommended, even if you don't read Spanish... Bill Jurens.

A good question. If she had maintained previous course and speed, Bismarck should have been able to make the French coast sometime around midnight on the 27th. Whether she could have actually docked after that is somewhat questionable. That would have given basically all of the 27th for the British ...

It is my general impression that the stability characteristics of Bismarck were largely defined by her rather large beam, which was in turn driven by a need to minimize draft. With length also limited by available building ways and draft fixed at a rather small value, the only ways to increase displ...

This is an observation that has been made many times before, and may -- or may not -- have much validity. British warships almost certainly did have to provide methods of accommodation that would be compatible for long-sea voyages to remote outposts in the Empire, whereas the Germans probably did no...