Naval History Forums

One of the things to think about was the cost and time involved of replacing major items such as older main belt armour, barbettes, and deck armour with the latest armour plates. Cost of course was a major factor, and armour was extremely expensive; if one had the budget or a very good reason to rep...

The Kongos received considerable deck armour added to the original protective plating. I think the barbettes may have been replaced and possibly portions of the turret armour. I am not sure if the belt was replaced or merely strengthened to make it a uniform 8-inch thickness. In the reconstructed US...

I believe the Italian dreadnoughts of WW1 vintage were completely rebuilt with the latest armour, although I think they were possibly the only ones.

The AA Common 5-in had a much thinner walled shell, much like the German M-Geschoss or Mine Shell, than the normal HC general HE shell.

There were also differences in the explosives used. Explosive D (ammonium picrate) with a detonation velocity of 21,300f/s was used in most thin walled AA Common and the semi armour piercing Special Common; however, Composition A, (RDX 91% and 9% plasticizing oil as a desensitizing agent) had a deto...

The 5" 38, if I recall, listed 1.5-in penetration at 10,000 yards for direct hits using the AA Common nose fuzed, thin walled shell. This was the predominant ammo type carried by most ships, and only a small percentage of magazine capacity being special common base fuzed Mk46. Special Common co...

STS was not face hardened. It was homogenous armour grade plate by Carnagie.

Zielsäule = target column

And now ... Fury I rather enjoyed that one when I saw it a few weeks ago. Interestingly enough, the Tiger tank represented in the engagement with the Sherman platoon was a real operational Tiger I, Tiger 131 on loan from the Bovington Armour Museum, instead of a mock up or reworked T34. "Fury&...

As a rule, 1.65-in STS plate would probably provide protection against direct hits from 5-in nose fuzed HE shells and possibly up to 6-in nose fuzed shells, although anything above that will likely go on through or burst in the plate. I would expect denting or dishing of the plate, but the HE and sp...

The armour of the barbette normally stopped at the armour deck (protective deck) and served mainly to protect the upper quarters hoists and machinery spaces for the turret. The lower quarters where the shells and charges were loaded from handling rooms into the hoists were below the armour deck and ...

While it is often referred to as a decapping layer or strake, the main function seems to have been to protect the spaces between the side plating and the internal, angled armour belt from splinter damage or hits by light nose fuzed shells, as with the belt now internal, these outer areas were no lon...

I agree that Bismarck was not fully ready in May 41. For one thing its radars were not even all installed before March 41, and the operators of the rangefinders mountings were still learning how to operate some of features at the time that the AVKS evaluations were terminated. In fact they mentione...

The three-leafed clover was a fairly common symbol in medieval Christianity, if I recall correctly. Certainly the trefoil or clover leaf pattern was widely used in church architecture.

In addition to Enigma, there were other German machines and codes in use, some of which were also broken and some which were not or only partly so. The Lorenz SZ-40/42 was a cypher machine for teleprinter and was famously broken by the Swedes as high level communications between Norway and Germany w...