Naval History Forums

It has been put forward by many that Hood was the prototype fast battleship. Nonetheless, prototypes by diffinition, do not repesent the final or optimal arangement. Hood, although called a battlecruiser, was in reality the best protected ship in the Royal Navy from the time of her completion until ...

The US was also intercepting military codes, but not to the same extent as the diplomatic codes. The British had given to the US their findings on the IJN military codes. Code named "Magic". The US were reading the military codes from 1939, but during 1941 the IJN changed the code slightly...

Agreed. There was an element of allowing "the other guy to fire the first shots" involved with the Pacific war, though. Both Washington and London, went to pains in cautioning area commanders in the far east against pre-emptive action. Pre-emptive action is often wise from a military stand...

....Legally FDR or any US President has the authority to go to war..... Let me clarify. Under the US constitution, only Congress can authorize going to war, but the President conducts the war policy once it starts, not Congress. Congress can control how the war is funded. After Vietnam there has be...

I've looked into this as an undergraduate, and must conclude that it is simply a conspirasy theory. As tantalizing as as some aspecs may be, FDR didn't simply allow this to happen, so he could justify going to war against Germany. The Pacific war and the war in Europe should really be viewed as two ...

I have been referred to this online essay:

http://www.friesian.com/kongo.htm

It's mostly from secondary sources, but fairly well written, and interesting reading nonetheless.

Baden was a much smaller ship. Bismarck was about 50,000 tons at a full load and had 308% more propulsive power on tap. Baden had a length to beam ratio of 6.3:1, but Bismarck's was 6.7:1. I'm not sure that any hull form calculations between the two designs would be of any use at all? How does Schar...

By the time of WWII, battleships were so complex that entire teams of naval architects, marine engineers, ballistics experts, metalurgists, welding engineers, electrical engineers, and so forth..and so forth...were required. Sometimes the current head designer in the bureacracy, over sees the proces...

..........Henson, with whom I don´t agree, stated also that Bismarck was a poor design built only as a comerce raider and not as a surface combat vessel. He points that the rudder, steering gear and radio were left almost unprotected, as examples of design blunders.............. The German battlesh...

Hi MVP, I agree with many of your classification revisions. Gneisenau never did get the planned 15-inch/52 guns. This didn't stop the KM from referring to the twins as Schlachtshiffs. They always referred to S&G as battleships. Sometimes it's tempered as small battleships, but battleships noneth...

I like how the anglo saxon and continental catagories work very nicely for the WW I era, but I can't really see extending these catagories into WWII eras and beyond. The USA and Britain (and the Germans) largely superceded the large BC concept with the fast battleship concept by WWII. One problem li...

Would a panzerschiffe be some form of WWII grosser kruezer?

Thank's Martin, It's interesting to see how the 1919 versions are rather similar to the HMS Hood in terms of size, displacement, and using eight heavy guns. I wonder how the armour compares? I wonder how they compare to the aborted German large BC's? It looks like the USN had keen interest in buildi...

Yes, that was one option, and the one they planned on going with at one point. They bassically had three general options: 9-14"/50, 30knots 12-14"/50, 27 knots 9-16"/45, 27 knots. It's been awhile since I read Friedman's essay on the warships lost to the Washington Treaty. Does anybod...

I stand corrected.