Naval History Forums

Machinery certainly is a limiting factor-rightfully so for ship design. But this is true also for a general assessment, weighting machinery versus other factors. What maybe played more a role in the decision making process was that albeit Britain pioneered the "unification type" dreadnough...

Hardly. As noticed above by another poster, the pre-Jutland QUEEN ELIZABETH class, despite large tube boilers already showed an acceptable top speed, faster by design (but not in practice) than the NELSON´s. After ww1 the small tube boilers and as important, reduction gears were generally adopted. T...

Not necessarely. Britain was in the formidable position to be able to play both games. That of the slow Dreadnought line of the battle (kind of reminds me on dinosaurs, big claws, plenty of armour but not very responsive to environmental changes and equipped only with rudimentary means of situationa...

Altough the twins were initially hoped for beeing armed with heavier guns. the 283mm gun was choosen, albeit a newer, longer and higher velocity model, in part caused by politically motivated thoughts. By 1935, when plans were finalised, there may have been the fitter-for-but-not-yet idea circulatin...

From the GOODALL report p.3 on former SMS BADEN (dated to 1921, referring to a ship completed 1917): " Propellers and hull efficiency parameters. (...) The wing screws are outward turning, the center screw is left-handed. Each propeller has three detachable blades, and the pitch can be adjusted...

95% efficiency is attainable without reduction of the rpm with the Föttinger transformer (ratio 1:1). With a reduction ratio ranging from 3:1 to 6:1 an efficency of 86% is reported. Ships buildt with this device are (to my knowledge): "Föttinger Transformer" buildt by Vulcan. A technology ...

Bestand 18.05. 00.00: 7700m^3 fuel oil fuel consumptions: May, 18th to 22nd of May each day 300m^3 = 1200m^2 May, 22nd to May,23rd with 21kts: = 450m^3 May, 23rd to May, 24th with 28kts = 960m^3 = 2610m^3 (indeed, 1,200 + 450 + 960 is exactly 2610m^3) Bestand May, 24th, 00.00: 5100m^3 fuel oil (inde...

The hydraulic gear- or fluid coupling mentioned before was invented by Prof. Föttinger and is sometimes therefore also called "Föttinger transformer". It´s not acting exactly like the Vulcan hydraulic coupling, which allowed a theoretically infinite but practically finite number of sources...

VICTORIOUS and FURIOUS together just managed to get 20 BARRACUDA´s and 3 CORSAIR´s striking TIRPITZ in 1944 in the first strike with the second beeing conducted by another 20 BARRACUDA and 3 CORSAIR. That was an all-out effort, the principal fightercover had to be provided by the escort carriers SEA...

Wouldn´t ALBACORE´s use torpedoes instead? Shouldn´t You substract the screen of recon´ airplanes to actually find GZ and track her in the first place? Do you really assume 100% aviability figures for airstrikes? My guess would be -judging from known period RN airstrike sizes: 6 SEA HURRICANE CAP --...

The fuse delay is non-delay, exploding similarely rapidly as projectile non-delay, contact fuses. These torpedoes can´t penetrate into structure, even if they are plain duds. Typically they indent the shellplate but I have never heard about a torpedo dud beeing carried a distance by a warship.

somehow my response went into the data-nirvana. I´m not going to repeat that effort. I am convinced that the first airborne radarset was carried in 1940 on Luftwaffe Do-18D´s. But I have to search for where I read that and that will be a messy job... Telefunken produced the first WÜRZBURG set´s in 1...

The Landing gear of the Bf-109T is strengthened to cope with harder landing, I don´t think it´s an issue. Indeed a case can be made that the Bf-109T is more able to operate from carriers than was the Sea-Hurricane and Seafire, both of which received only limited changes for carrier operation, which ...

This is very problematical. Take the example Fulmar vs Fi-167. According to the Fumar´s pilot notes (Air publication 1760a, volume I, revised april 1942, issued with A./L. 21D) for both, Fulmar 1 and mk2, the engine was cleared for +5.25lbs operating with 87cot fuel and +9.0lbs boost using 100oct fu...

No. A ranking shouldn´t be attempted.
Aerial warfare is very different to naval warfare and tactics as well as teamwork are to determinant factors to be nelected.
Airplanes are- by all measure- fragile instruments.