Naval History Forums

Well Hood could've had the role of making sure that german cruisers dont go into the Atlantic and disrupt the convoys, as well as Renown, with speed and firepower. Hood was just placed in a situation she should never have been in the first place: pitting in line of battle against a battleship 20 ye...

Gentlemen, Having read all your posts I have come to the conclusion that the BC was good at what it was designed for, basically keeping enemy armoured cruisers out of the way and keeping the vast British Empire secure by the presence of a large heavily armed ship sent to deter any interference with ...

Gentlemen, Thank you for your replies, I supposed I'm a bit biased towards the QE's as my father served on Q E and Valiant as midshipman and then Lieutenant on both between the wars. I do take your points about the protection of the Italian ships and that they would have been formidable opponents if...

Gentlemen,
I may be entirely wrong in this, but I'm sure that I read somewhere that some of the explosions on our battlecruisers was due to cordite being stored in the turrets to aid the rate of fire, am I correct?

Gentlemen,
Surely it is not 'who fires first' but who hits first and keeps on hitting?

Hello everybody, while it is out of discussion that the Italian Navy ( Regia Marina ) has been very poorly managed during WW2, here we are talking an hypothetical naval scenario never happened in reality. Well, my personal opinion is just the opposite of what I am reading here above. It ha been a v...

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but perhaps the RN would have been better advised to build three fast 15" battleships (28 -30 knots) instead of Hood, Renown and Repulse. Hood had better protection than the QEs and the Rs. Hood was a fast battleship as built. It was built with the Hindsight of ...

Gentlemen, Surely the battlecruiser was designed with fairly light armour, powerful armament and high speed in order to catch and destroy enemy cruisers, not take on heavily armed and armoured battleships in a stand up fight or in a line of battle - as happened at Jutland and of course with Hood. I ...

Gentlemen,
Just a thought on a slightly different scenario, what would happen if the Veneto came up against a really good shooting ship like Warspite or Valiant?

... It would be very difficult to know. Historically, both German ships concentrated fire on the lead enemy ship, identified as a "cruiser" by Prinz Eugen and as a "battleship" on board Bismarck. With Prince of Wales in the lead, this could cause Bismarck and PE to fire against ...

Gentlemen, The original question was about the best battlecruiser of WWI/2, I suggested that the twins each fitted with 6x15" would have been very a formidable opposition for other ships and I hold by that, particularly if it were against other battle cruisers with similar armament but not so w...

Gentlemen,
Put 6x15" on Scharnhorst & Gneisnau as was proposed and you would have two very formidable battle cruisers capable of tackling most other ships including full on battleships.

Gentlemen,
it would seem that Hood would have the 'moral ascendency' of the RN over the Italian navy, but I wonder what would happen if V V met up with Warspite in a one to one battle, my money would be on Warspite due to her superior gunnery. What do you think?

Gentlemen,
I'm sorry to show my ignorance, but what is, or was, a WEE VEE?

Gentlemen, We have discussed many variations of battleship to battleship actions but I don't think this has been a topic before (forgive me if it has). Let us put German fast ships against those of the RN, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Scharnhorst and Gniesnau (both re-gunned to 6 x 15" each) plus AGS, Sc...