Naval History Forums

Tommy303 can give you much more detailed information. Armor piercing units are screwed into the base of the main body like a bolt is screwed into something by wrench. They work by inertia, so when the shell encounters sufficient deceleration it goes off. The deceleration causes a firing pin to strik...

During Scharnhorst's last mission, the battle of North Cape, she hit the Norfolk twice, but failed to hit the Duke of York even once. 38 cm guns would have decreased her chances of hitting the Duke of York. Not getting hits with bigger guns doesn't help. Better radar and radar use was needed instea...

WPL-46 is Rainbow 5

IJN decisive battle plans The Japanese also were imbued with the doctrines of Mahan. Additionally, their own naval tradition included the Battle of Tsushima when a war was won by completely defeating the Russian fleet in a single decisive battle as recently as 1905. The Japanese decisive battle doc...

Rainbow 5 Plan Orange was superseded, or a better term might be supplemented, by Rainbow 5. The Rainbow War Plans were drawn up to reflect the reality that no two nations were likely to fight wars exclusively between themselves. Rainbow 5 assumed war against Japan and Germany at the same time, and ...

The US Army saw things very differently. For Army planners the main problem was that the Philippines were indefensible to invasion without a large battle fleet already in correct position to repel a Japanese invasion fleet. The largest practical army garrison that could be deployed to the Philippine...

Plan Orange: The Color Plans were broad strategic plans developed by the US Military during the early 20th Century in case of war with various possible opponents. Plan Red was in case of war with Great Britain. Plan Black was in case of war with Germany. Plan Green was in case of war with Mexico an...

I see that Theresa May has recently been given the nickname Treason May.

I'm sure that I read somewhere that in the opening battle of North Cape Scharnhorst was surprised by HM ships Belfast,Sheffield and Norfolk who opened fire on her, but it was Norfolk who got hit by return fire because she was not using 'Flash-less Cordite' which enabled Sharnhorst's gunners to iden...

Hi Dave, in terms of thickness, I agree the 9 ER mm would not add much to the 36 OD mm. I wonder whether they play a role in order to help de-capping the shell and/or enhancing the jawing movement before hitting the main armored deck, compensating (in some way) the presence of the 12 ER mm deck in ...

@ Dave Saxton, :ok: One question, in addition to the thicker deck in between the 2 armored ones, Littorio's did not use armor as a structural component of the ship, thus the weather deck was 36 armor grade steel + 9 ER construction steel. We know that 36 + 9 is NOT = 45 mm in terms of protection, e...

true, but in case of Littorio's, the distance between the "de-capping" weather deck and the main armored deck is the same as in Bismarck's (2 decks). The only "problem" of the Littorio's is the thin (36 OD steel + 9 ER steel) de-capping weather deck, not really able to de-cap heavy shells at any bu...

As you point out there were many possibilities to save more lives in hindsight. However, I'm not sure the human psychology works that way when in crisis and within a finite time span, although I'm certainly no psychology expert. We humans often fail. In aviation there is a phrase to remember for man...

Entering a night sea battle is an awesome business.The enveloping darkness, hiding the enemy's .. seems a living thing, malignant and oppressive.Swishing water at the bow and stern mark an inexorable advance toward an unknown destiny. "Hiding the enemy's" what? Never mind. I looked it up. "hiding t...

My brother told me of a conversation with a fellow pilot who was checked out to fly several warbirds. This pilot was currently flying an F8F Bearcat on his way to Oshkosh, but he told of test flying one of the few still flying BF109s compared to Spitfires. It was that pilot's opinion that the BF109 ...