High towers on Japanese battleships

[paul.mercer]

Gentlemen,
Looking at some film of Japanese battleships on TV the other day I wondered if their very high 'towers' affected the stability of the ship in heavy weather or if it was starting to list after being hit with a torpedo.
What are your opinions?

[RF]

Not much evidence of this that I am aware of, presumably the ship designers would take such factors into account?

The German experience with AGS in 1939 didn't seem to affect seakeeping, the main problem was that the tower made the ship easy to identify at long range - as HMS Exeter did.

[marcelo_malara]

I agree with RF, despite the dangerous appearance of such high structures, the stability of ships was fully known by then, and the designers would have taken care of it. As a side note, a ship would have her point of vanishing stability (intact condition) at about 70° of heel.

Regards

[OpanaPointer]

Stability was carefully studied in all phases of construction. That British sail warship that turned turtle was a clarion call.

[marcelo_malara]

Stability was carefully studied in all phases of construction. That British sail warship that turned turtle was a clarion call.

I think you mean the HMS Captain. In that case the naval constructors opinions were ignored, and the design ended up as Coles wanted. The constructors didn´t like the low freeboard, which Coles liked so the ship had a low silhouette.

[OpanaPointer]

Not the one I'm thinking of, (Rose something something?)

[marcelo_malara]

Oh, yes, the Mary Rose.

[OpanaPointer]

Oh, yes, the Mary Rose.

Bimbo! (sp?)

[RF]

And also the Swedish warship Wasa......

[marcelo_malara]

There were in the last century some cases of tall ships capsizing, they are described and analyzed in the book https://www.amazon.com/Tall-Ships-Down- ... 007143545X, which I recommend, a highly readable, interesting and well researched book. In this cases the lost of stability was not due to faulty design, but to subsequent modifications in the ships. The exception was the Pamir, in which case faulty cargo loading and distribution combined with hurricane force winds.

[Fatboy Coxy]

The Japanese torpedo boat Tomozuru capsized in a storm in March 1934, shortly after completion. The floating hull was towed back, and salvaged. Following this the IJN had a fleet wide review of the stability of all its ships, and found many others were of low metacentric height, resulting in rebuilds and modifications. see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ ... t_Tomozuru

It was around this time that the Japanese were rebuilding their battleships, with the high pagodas, I feel sure that lessons learnt from the Tomozuru incident were built into them.

[OpanaPointer]

And also the Swedish warship Wasa......

Forgot that one.

[BuckBradley]

Stability was carefully studied in all phases of construction. That British sail warship that turned turtle was a clarion call.

I'm pretty sure that the Captain's demise was caused not so much by faulty design as by failure to strictly supervise the material that was being worked into the ship during building (this from Parkes). Captain was very much overweight when she was floated out and gave a shocking incline test result (which did not make its way out to the ship in time basically because it wasn't marked "urgent").

One of the witnesses at the inquiry (an RN captain involved in the ship's early trials) stated that he would not dared to have kept that ship under sail a single night had he had the results of that incline test.

'Twas a disaster "weighting" to happen....

[RF]

Rather like the Tay Bridge....

[Byron Angel]

The "Royal George" disaster is a very good example of the careful attention required in managing warships of the AoS era.

Byron