Naval History Forums

I think in a battle like this grouping, rate of fire and broadside are the key factors.

Arizona broadside 8.16 tons ---> Royal Oak broadside 7.03 tons (according to navalweapons)

Arizona rof 1.25-1.75 rounds/minute ---> Royal Oak rof 2 rounds/minute

Grouping ---> I don't know

The speed difference is also quite important, IMO: a ship moving at 22kts can only cover a certain maximum distance in the time the enemies shells traveled in the air. A ship at 30kts can be in a wider area. 22kts ~ 40.000m/hour ~ 11.32 m/s 30kts ~ 55.560m/h ~ 15.43 m/s Say the battle starts at 25.0...

The boiler room hit, if I understand correctly, was a very lucky hit. Hipper's armour over the magazines, machinery and turrets should have been strong enough to resist 6" fire. On the other hand, Sheffield and Jamaica were prone to explode and to be sent all the way to the moon by 8" and ...

IIRC, Lexington and Enterprise were on patrols, to block a potential attack from the west. However, the Japanese strike force attacked from the north. I don't know were Hornet, Lexington and Saratoga were, though...

My favorite names are:

- Warspite
- Haruna
- Vengeance (though canceled)
- Graf Spee

Many thanks for your reply. I always thought that the German cruiser suffered considerable damage from destroyers and light cruisers. I find it now hardly the case. All the more embarassing for the KGM...

Hello,

Just asking what kind of damage did the destroyers and light cruisers inflicted on the German cruiser. I don't have any sources on this..

Karl Heidenreich wrote:alecsandros:

That book will find a very good acceptance around here.

It's clear that they could have been much, much better prepared for the attack. In his "War in the Pacific", Harry Gailey states that the US were waiting for the Japanese attack, but weren't waiting for it there . They were waiting for an attack on Midway - and that as a worst case scenari...

Why is everyone ignoring my post about the very long range battle of the Komandorski Islands? For my part, it's the first time I even hear of this battle :) I looked it up on the net (don't have any books that cover the subject), adn found several sites. It appears that, late in the battle, Maya sc...

Hello, I found this book on "worst warships ships ever built from the 1860s onward". Unfortunately, the book is poorly written, researched, and has eye-poping conclusions (in general, the ships that got sunk are "the worst"). For instance, an excerpt regarding the Bismarck, on pa...

I like the name of the British battleship - "Prince of Whales", in fact an oversized whaler, that used to hunt enemy ships with harpoons.

And Romania annexed Bessarabia from Russia after the First World War. The Russians took back what was originally theirs. Romania also annexed Transylvania from Hungary after the First World War and had to give it up under the orders of Ribbentropp and Ciano as the price of having both Hungary and R...

Hi, Just found this on the net. Maybe you'll amuse yourselves, just as I have. Cheers ================= The Sinking of the Battleship Bismarck What was the Bismark, and why does it matter? As its name implies, the Bismarck was a battleship under German command. It was built during World War II durin...

Romania was legally at war with the USSR from 22 June 1941, with Britain from 5 December 1941, and with the USA from 12 December 1941. The Soviets had every right to invade Romania, the USAF had every right to bomb Romania, which they did. The conduct of the Soviet forces is an entirely different m...