Search found 212 matches

by Mostlyharmless
Sat Dec 13, 2014 6:23 pm
Forum: Naval Technology
Topic: Comparisons of Axis vs Allied Combat Vessels
Replies: 68
Views: 49011

Re: Comparisons of Axis vs Allied Combat Vessels

I am dubious about your best battleship pages because there are no references or diagrams. The KGV Class must have been hard for the author to classify because I suspect that the RN's 1000 lb. of TNT rating allows flooding of the auxiliary machinery compartments. Wikipedia's article http://en.wikipe...
by Mostlyharmless
Sat Dec 13, 2014 4:40 pm
Forum: Naval Technology
Topic: Comparisons of Axis vs Allied Combat Vessels
Replies: 68
Views: 49011

Re: Comparisons of Axis vs Allied Combat Vessels

I am not sure that all your figures, especially those for Yamato, are correct. Tim Thornton's article “Yamato: The Achilles Heel” from Warship Magazine 1987 http://www.spacecruiseryamato.com/ijn/articles/heel.html has “The width of this around her machinery spaces was on average 5.lm, and was narrow...
by Mostlyharmless
Fri Dec 12, 2014 10:39 pm
Forum: Naval Technology
Topic: Refitting of ships - Armor?
Replies: 21
Views: 14062

Re: Refitting of ships - Armor?

The square root idea is complete irrelevant as far as the idea of adding a completely new 3 inch (120 lb.) plate to Hood is concerned. The square root calculation assumes that the two plates are parallel. The drawing shows that the shell goes through the nearly vertical 7 inch side plate and then ha...
by Mostlyharmless
Fri Dec 12, 2014 8:00 pm
Forum: Naval Technology
Topic: Comparisons of Axis vs Allied Combat Vessels
Replies: 68
Views: 49011

Re: Comparisons of Axis vs Allied Combat Vessels

This is an interesting topic and I agree that the failures of ship designers are only revealed when things go wrong or at least when someone with no commitment to the design process examines the design. For example, the RN criticized USN turrets as not being flash tight by their standards after exam...
by Mostlyharmless
Sat Dec 06, 2014 9:00 pm
Forum: Naval History (1922-1945)
Topic: WHY DID KURITA TURN AWAY
Replies: 13
Views: 9022

Re: WHY DID KURITA TURN AWAY

I have not read Robert Lundgren's “The World Wonder'd: What Really Happened Off Samar” but one point that came up in discussions elsewhere was that Kurita had not received any message telling him about the attacks on Ozawa's carriers when he turned away. He did not know that Halsey had taken the bai...
by Mostlyharmless
Mon Dec 01, 2014 2:28 am
Forum: Hypothetical Naval Scenarios
Topic: Beauty & the Beast
Replies: 30
Views: 17608

Re: Beauty & the Beast

The Littorio Class ships do have one huge advantage over almost every other battleship, which relates to the unusual design of the rear 381 mm turret and barbette. The Littorios could fire all 9 guns only 20 degrees off directly ahead because the rear turret could fire over the secondary turrets. Th...
by Mostlyharmless
Sun Nov 02, 2014 11:09 am
Forum: Naval History (1922-1945)
Topic: USS Massachusets V Jean Bart
Replies: 7
Views: 5290

Re: USS Massachusets V Jean Bart

I haven't read Jordan & Dumas. Do they describe how the sections of Jean Bart's main deck were fixed together? For example, South Dakota or Iowa's main deck consists of 4.75 inch plates laid on top of 1.25 inch plates (with a 5/8th inch plate below), King George V has either 200 lb plate or 160 ...
by Mostlyharmless
Fri Oct 31, 2014 9:52 pm
Forum: Naval History (1922-1945)
Topic: USS Massachusets V Jean Bart
Replies: 7
Views: 5290

Re: USS Massachusets V Jean Bart

....snip.... You can google this pretty easily and get detailed information. Good luck finding out the range at which the various hits were scored. You might find yourself led into a fascinating debate over how a 2,700 lb. shell penetrated the 150 mm main armour deck after passing through a 25 mm (...
by Mostlyharmless
Thu Oct 16, 2014 3:25 pm
Forum: Naval History (1922-1945)
Topic: The enigma of the Enigma
Replies: 17
Views: 3575

Re: The enigma of the Enigma

We need to be careful to distinguish between the Enigma family of machines and the Lorenz SZ40, SZ42A and SZ42B http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorenz_SZ40/42 which were attacked using Colossus and Heath-Robinson. As far as I know, all the breaks into German military Enigma used either the indicators, ...
by Mostlyharmless
Tue Oct 14, 2014 12:03 am
Forum: Naval History (1922-1945)
Topic: The enigma of the Enigma
Replies: 17
Views: 3575

Re: The enigma of the Enigma

One of the puzzles is why the Germans kept on improving their codes through the Thirties and WW2 whilst at the same time believing that there was no way that the Allies could make a long lasting break into the codes (i.e. beyond capturing a month's settings). Bauer's “Decrypted Secrets” mentions on ...
by Mostlyharmless
Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:57 pm
Forum: The Dreadnought Era (1906-1921)
Topic: Film of Battles of Coronel and Falklands
Replies: 0
Views: 17283

Film of Battles of Coronel and Falklands

In case any of you have not seen this, there is a trailer at http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2 ... iler-video
by Mostlyharmless
Fri Oct 10, 2014 9:52 pm
Forum: World War II
Topic: Was US participation in WWII superfluous?
Replies: 146
Views: 85404

Re: Was US participation in WWII superfluous?

My take is that Britain and Russia could perhaps have defeated Italy and Germany but it would have been a long hard fight. If Japan had joined in against Britain and Russia without America becoming involved, I believe that the Axis Powers would have won. We had a very long discussion about this on t...
by Mostlyharmless
Sun Sep 14, 2014 8:39 pm
Forum: Hypothetical Naval Scenarios
Topic: Graf Spee trying to escape back to Germany...
Replies: 158
Views: 58853

Re: Graf Spee trying to escape back to Germany...

As we have discussed why Germany could build 10,000 ton cruisers with 11 inch guns, could anyone clarify what was the Versailles Treaty definition of displacement? My guess is that it was not defined, so the Germans could make a case for choosing the best definition possible and building ships of 10...
by Mostlyharmless
Fri Jul 04, 2014 10:12 am
Forum: Hypothetical Naval Scenarios
Topic: The RN vs yamato
Replies: 7
Views: 4712

Re: The RN vs yamato

...snip... I don't think any naval vessels were captured in WWII. None that I can think of, anyway. Pola was "captured" at Matapan. According to Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_Matapan: Towing Pola to Alexandria as a prize was considered, but daylight was approaching...
by Mostlyharmless
Thu Jun 19, 2014 3:18 pm
Forum: Naval History (1922-1945)
Topic: What if Hitler understood naval power?
Replies: 14
Views: 3629

Re: What if Hitler understood naval power?

One interesting possibility would have been if Hitler had been greatly impressed by Operation Albion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Albion, either because he had taken part or because Magnus von Levetzow http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_von_Levetzow had been more prominent in the NSDAP. “...