Naval History Forums

I wonder how these shells maintained structural integrity against the accelerations required for such high MVs? In all applications I know of for the M-Geschoss they never cut down the mv. Rather contrary, in smaller guns (f.e.20mm and 30mm range) the adoption of the M-Geschoss, which was a bit lig...

One more merchant was sunk by Condors and three more returned to Canada out of the scattered convoi. But this is of little consequence. The way You describe the employment of a Task force is entirely correct. But I do hold the opinion that local superiority is difficult to mainten for a german task ...

The angle of fall of the KGV class 14" at these ranges is only about 14*. In order to reach the compartment in question the shell would have had to traverse at least 14.5 meters of sea water. Moreover, this is if the shell reached the upper most portion of the possible striking area, but since...

That´s not for certain. A task force will be subject to concentrated efforts of the allies. I have no doubt that the RN with it´s naval assets, great deal of experience and quantitatively-qualitatively superior instruments of Sea Controll will defeat such a concentration of KM forces and what´s then...

I don't see a coherent line of argument here. If a task force as outlined is merely a candidate to be despatched by a concentration of RN forces, how come that one raider on its own can achieve dispertion as opposed to its easy destruction? A task force centered around a carrier represents a concen...

I beg to differ in this question. Task forces centered around a pair of BB´s, a Spähkreuzer and a carrier are waste of ressources in asymetric warfare. The KM is the inferior force in any conflict with the UK. Thus, in case it decides to threaten british Sealanes, it has to disperse british activiti...

The HIPPERs don´t have the range necessary to operate as an independent raider in the North Atlantic by using bases in northern Germany. Historically, their design was demanding in to many directions. It received powerful guns (altough not powerful enough for dispatching a pair of WT cruisers), a fu...

technically: 15cm, true rapid fire triple turrets were fielded by the KM in the mid thirties. These had been the 5.91"/60 of CL NÜRNBERG, which achieved a cyclic rate of fire of 10 to 12 rpmpg (=5 to 6 sec.) as opposed to 6-8 for the K-class mounts. I don´t think they will be of any asset in th...

One of the most important factors in light AAA fire- not the most decisive one but for sure important- is the ability to inflict very serious damage in an as short timeframe as possible. While heavy AAA don´t require multiple, direct hits to destroy a soft target like an aeroplane, light AA typicall...

I tend to side with Robertson. I may have missed something but so far didn´t found that a poster claimed to be better or have found some better solution in minutes notice than the design staff of R&D did in the 30´s /40´s. The identification of the aforementioned weakness by itself doesn´t discr...

There are differences to BISMARCK´s underwater side protection arrey and IOWA´s. Some just coming out of my memory (the list likely isn´t complete): [+]IOWA´s bulkheads are inclined, BISMARCK´s are not [+]IOWA´s side arrey included two .625" STS bulkheads before the belt and a .625" STS bu...

edit: another metric problem encountered with salvo 8. I once more repost the corrected graph and tabulated entries for each salvo:
You better check & doublecheck...

According to Nathan Okun´s formula´s, ca. 1.4" plating (plate quality doesn´t matter, even if laminated) will reliably set off the fuse of a 14in APC at 0 deg. impact obliquity, dropping to 0.98" at 61 deg obliquity. thus 35mm at the given angle of fall would certainly be enough to set off...

You are perfectly right, D. It´s my mistake. Somehow a I pasted a figure from the metric column instead of the yard one into my statistic tool. I have corrected this in the meantime. I also included the salvo numbering, more precise timings of the salvo from the gunnery records but left out the disp...

Hi D., PoW's gunnery records is the primary source I based my graph on. My first straddle occurs with hit no.6, not with no.7, which was observed to be over. Thus the sequence No6, No.9 and No. 13 is the correct one for both. Where do You read that hit No.7 is the first one in my drawing? You must b...