Naval History Forums

I am not convinced that the probabiliyt to blow up HOOD is really very low. From a point during the turn it is vulnerable to the main belt penetration and an upper side belt penetration. It´s also quite endangered by hits on the barbette or the turret faces in any range (altough blast and flash proo...

I was always thinking that no airplanes existed for GZ. Until someone pointed me to the fact that GRAF ZEPPELIN´s naval dive bomber airgroup 4.(St.)/186 (T.) equipped with Ju-87C0 and Ju-87C1 was not only formed in 1939 and came along well with training but in fact was operationally deployed in comb...

I second lwd here. Random distribution of hits rule when no direct aiming point in direct line fire can be achieved. I wouldn´t expect catastrophic damage that soon in a second run, either. Hits on turrets can have very negative consequences (this is true for all ships involved in the DS action), at...

All but one of the four ocean going supply ships were still there to the end of 1942. Only UCKERMARK wasn´t. She arrived in Yokohama on Nov. 24th., 1942 after serving off France together with Ermland. DITHMARSCHEN and NORDMARK were both operating off Norway, ERMLAND was stationed in France. FRANKEN ...

I suspect that the 16in/52 twin turrets of the H-class were fitter-for-but-not-yet type turrets intended for 16.5in/47. The following graph shows the weight curve for german twin turrets (including revolving armour but not turret armour). I originally did that to make an educated guess about a possi...

I agree. It´s impossible to compare this with other data without further information.

But You agree that there is a difference between "erreicht" (=achieved) and "errechnet" (=calculated)? The authors of this report had full access to trial data. More informations such as displacement and water depth of the trials are needed to attempt to reconstruct the speed/dis...

Thanks Byron for these comments. I may add that the 3m stereoscopic rangefinders were sometimes replaced in the repair and docking process following the battle of Jutland. After the battle, all of the 3m and 4m (KÖNIG class only) instruments in the fore and aft GCT positions were changed. Usually, t...

I would like to direct attention to a primary contemporary source. The comparison of the BISMARCK class with the french RICHELIEU-class hasn´t been captured in this discussion altough I think it may contribute to the question of the BISMARCK´s speed. It was written in between 1940 and 1941, at one p...

I think Byron indeed made a good point. The max. firing rate for brief periods of action can be higher than 2rpm for the 16in/50 and 38cm for a good trained turretcrew and a stock of ready ammunition stored in the turrets back. At longer actions, when the stock of ready ammunition is used up, the ca...

Plate edge effects appear to be vastly different for homogenious and face hardened armour. In the case above homogenious armour has been used and little difference appeared. From another case I know that fae hardened armour was really sensible to plate edge effects. Even if correctly buttressed and ...

..... For what it's worth, British WW1 investigation (Final Report of the President of the Projectile Commission - 1917) observed some interesting differences in effect among different projectile types - Lyddite charged HE projectiles produced a cloud of very small fast moving fragments in all dire...

In the case of the 14" round hitting the SoDak it was rejected by the barbet armor and still detonated high order. My point was that just because it was rejected by the armor doesn't mean that it won't explode high order or even that it will shatter. I've seen battleship projectiles that have ...

Thanks Thorsten. From these data it appears that british CA as used in comparative trials against TIRPITZ plates is significantly superior to average british CA. Average british ww2 period CA appears to be slightly inferior to average KC/n.A.of the same period for 420lbs and 520lbs plates, at least....

There were at least two radar simulations of the North Cape battle, one conducted by the Bundesmarine and another one by the norwegians in the 90´s. The following exzerpt comes from member wavelength of another board, who I am indepted for his views on the action with regard to radar usage: Hi my fi...