Regarding Hood at DS : a new article

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

an interesting article by my friend Buzz Beurling, ... the biggest fan of HMS Hood I have ever met in my life.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4SRu1 ... pGd3c/view

Bye Antonio

[Alberto Virtuani]

Hi Antonio,
thanks for posting this interesting article !

Buzz is clearly a competent person, able to analyze the engagement in a very good way, taking into account mostly very reliable sources and references !

I agree with you that he is a great "fan" of HMS Hood: some of his statements on her armor and readiness for combat against a modern 35,000 tons battleship like Bismarck are IMO over-estimations.

Main points I disagree with Buzz re. Hood vs Bismarck/KGV characteristic are (I think we all have discussed at long here these):
1) he consider Hood a fast battleship, that is true as per WWI parameters, surely not for WWII parameters.
2) he doesn't take into account the design and the quality of the Hood armor, he just counts the inches of steel (e.g. 7" over magazines are just a sum of the 3 (or 4) mild steel decks over mags)
3) he seems to ignore the fact (clearly exposed by Mr.Jurens) that after concluding her second 20° turn to port, the Hood vertical protection was becoming more and more dangerously exposed to a direct penetration of the powerful German 15" shells.
4) he underestimates Bismarck vertical protection not taking into account the slope that made her vitals almost invulnerable (as demonstrated on May 27).
5) he repeats the wrong statement according which Bismarck communication system was not protected (where?)
6) he overestimates the statistical probability of a hit in the Hood mags (Adm.Santarini estimates 40 full salvos (30/40 minutes at the actual RoF at DS) to be the right amount of time needed to have the probability 1 for a catastrophic explosion, while Buzz says 3 hours.....).


The most interesting and correct part is the fair (and mostly in synch with our discussions here) analysis of PoW level of training and gunnery performance, especially when compared with the other ships of the KGV class.
Here as well he seems however to underestimate German performances, attributing "only" 4 hits to Bismarck (while a they were 3 on PoW and possibly 2 or 3 on Hood) and stating PG fired 178 shells (they were just 157).


Overall, an interesting article !


Bye, Alberto

[alecsandros]

A long and mostly inaccurate article.
How old is it ?

[Antonio Bonomi]

Hello everybody,

@ Alecsandros,

the article is very recent, ... 2016/2017.

Bye Antonio

[alecsandros]

Very very bad in that case

[RF]

Buzz is clearly a competent person, able to analyze the engagement in a very good way, taking into account mostly very reliable sources and references !

I agree with you that he is a great "fan" of HMS Hood: some of his statements on her armor and readiness for combat against a modern 35,000 tons battleship like Bismarck are IMO over-estimations.

Overall, an interesting article !

I would agree with all three assertions here, though I note the article does contain a number of criticisms of Bismarck that do need some qualification.

[Bill Jurens]

I have been in recent contact with Mr. Beurling (a pseudonym) regarding this paper. It is my impression that he has now decided to withdraw the article in order to make some revisions.

Bill Jurens

[culverin]

Some revisions. That is an understatement.

When an author fails within 3 paragraphs to recognise the correct Armoured Cruisers lost in catastrophic circumstances at Jutland, with their entire complements, ones faith diminishes somewhat.
Defence and Black Prince were the pair.
Warrior was a very slow sinking, the seaplane carrier Engadine providing succour and assistance until she finally slowly slipped into the shallow depths of the North Sea, long after being saviour of the Warspite.

His, Buzz, classification of Hood as Battlecruiser, Fast Battleship or Battleship is irrelevent, then we have the ' had the Iowa been built for the RN' scenario and finally, a reminder, Nelson and Rodney then followed Hood into service and so on...

Hood was 1 of 4, as envisaged. Rodney, Anson and Howe were but half sisters, at best. Their magazines and shell rooms were transposed from Hood, a significant alteration. There was good reason for this major alteration.

Hood, alas, was a liability at the time of her loss. Unfortunately, many able men died with her.

This forum has many learned individuals who have contributed much to our understanding of her demise, B B, and his, as originally attached article, is not amongst them.

[Thorsten Wahl]

Their magazines and shell rooms were transposed from Hood, a significant alteration. There was good reason for this major alteration.

what was the reason?

The Germans went the other way: They explicitely decide to retain the powder chambers above the shell rooms with the Linienschiff 1913(Baden) design when they experienced possibly fatal hits with diving shells on their target ships in this timeframe, to keep the more volatile charges behind heavy armor protection.

[Alberto Virtuani]

Thorsten Wahl wrote: "what was the reason?"

Hi Thorsten,
as far as I can understand, the main German concern, having designed a Bismarck class that was almost immune against flat trajectories, was the relatively shallow belt that implied that a diving shell could be able to reach the lower part of the citadel. Therefore the wisest decision was to keep the magazines above the shell rooms, to have them completely hidden behind the exceptionally strong belt/slope combination.

The British design (at least with KGV class) was based on a (thick) belt that was going quite deep underwater, thus better protecting from a diving shell event.
However, as their belt was not "complemented" by the slope, their primary concern was still a possible direct penetration when the ship was out of her immunity zone (e.g. at close ranges), therefore they preferred to have the shell rooms above the magazines, to make the magazines almost impossible to reach for an enemy shell with a relatively flat impact angle.
Also, British may have been (already at that time) more concerned by plunging fire and mostly by airplane bombs menace (very correctly, IMHO) , against which the shell room could represent a further protection for the magazine, and their design may have been the result of this second concern more than of the first one.


Bye, Alberto

[culverin]

Thanks for your interest Thorsten and Alberto,
the brief statement i made re transposing the shell and magazine rooms in Hood's 3 half sisters is covered in detail by Ian Sturton, Cancelled Sisters: The Modified Hood Class, which comprised Anson, Howe and Rodney, Warship 2010, pp 96 - 102. Maybe you have this volume. Also covered by Raven and Roberts in their British Battleships of World War Two, published in 1976, of which i have a copy, but not yet consulted.
The final decision, after extensive tests in late 1917, was not directed until 5 Sept 1918, the reasons and ramifications being considered, least of all the extensive re working of much armour.
There appears considerable discussion and debate within the D.N.C. departments from the time construction of Hood herself commenced, and consequently she would have been what she ended as. A one off.

[legio5]

Sean's (culverin) unnecessarily spiteful & somewhat pompous review of 'Beurling's article demeans this debate.Perhaps his unusual use of syntax & grammar indicate that English is not his mother tongue?

Despite his contact with Jurens,'Beurling' does overstate Hood's protection.The Royal Navy's 1939 document, CB 04039, Table 5, has I believe, led Jurens to conclude that Hood was "not protected against 15" fire".

However, as 'Beurling' correctly points out it was a freak shot that sank the Hood, which in other circumstances might have been expected to survive for considerably longer.

Nunc est bibendum.